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The Instituto da Primeira Infância (IPREDE) is a NGO started twenty-nine years ago that became an extension program of the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). Students from the school of Medicine from UFC have been contributing with the extension project by exercising practically the knowledge they acquire in their lectures. The community, the University and the organization have been harvesting advantages out of this cooperation.
This study intends to answer the following research question: What benefits the community, university and an NGO obtain from interacting with one another? The general objective is to analyse the advantages each part attain from this cooperation. This general objective unfolds into three specific ones. To identify the benefits the interaction provides to the community served; to outline the advantages granted to the university itself; and, to identify the benefits attained by the NGO.
The theoretical background was based on a literature review related to the meaning of university extension as a concept (Mauerberg, Guerreiro, Costa and Ferreira, 2014) . Afterwards, it is taken the opportunity to explain the categories of benefits from Cruz, Melo, Malafaia and Tenório (2011), which were adapted to be used in the paper. The categories proposed by these authors were modified in order to comprise the benefits granted to the univerisity, the community and the NGO.
This research is exploratory, qualitative and uses semi-structured interviews. The data analysis utilizes the content analysis technique from Bardin (1977). This study is classified as qualitative once the processes regarding the transference of knowledge is epistemologically underpinned on non-Cartesian principles, which value the interaction between the parts involved and the depth of related social issues (Vieira, 2004). The strategy adopted was the case study (Yin, 2001).
Regarding the benefits for the community, the interviewees emphasized the easier access to medical attention and treatment that would not be reached through the regular health system. The university and its members are being benefitted by being able to put and see in practice what had been learnt only in theory in the lectures. The NGO has been benefitted by receiving contributions in human resources with no charge, professors and students beneficiaries with quality healthcare.
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