This experience, combining research processes, participation and educational practice, aimed at identifying social needs and demands for lifelong learning. Conception of lifelong education, sociocultural strategies and public education came together in addressing participatory action research. It involved an analysis of the neighborhood’s reality, involving references of schools and social organizations, based on experienced problematic situations: educational low quality and poverty. Research was conducted on visions of teachers, families and young people regarding the link between school and community in order to facilitate construction of bridges. This dynamic increased the capacity of reflexive analysis and appropriation of scientific instruments by the participants. Altogether, collective construction of knowledges founded the development of participative transformative actions.