The SPAcE project entered a very important phase this month as local working groups across 5 cities and towns in Greece, Italy, Latvia, Romania and Spain have been formed to develop actions plans for the development of urban active environments (UActivE) across Europe. The end result will be developed policy interventions to promote physical activity-friendly environments and good practices for 5 diverse communities to develop and implement environment and policy changes at the local level.
In Palermo Italy, the local working group has been set up and met three times to plan, prepare and develop the UActivE Action Plan for Palermo, Italy. CESIE gathered 10 members with different backgrounds to share ideas, expertise and begin writing the action plan for Palermo. CESIE has put together a team of teachers, high school students, former marathon champion, architects, youth workers, experts in planning and sustainability and policy makers to discuss about the best actions to take inside and outside schools.
The idea for the city of Palermo is to implement actions which are viable and cost-effective at local level. The working group already completed action plan template with ideas that can be developed in collaboration with school headmasters, teachers, parent boards, students, local administrations and decision makers in school education. In particular, the working group focused on school gardening as a very simple action to help students increase their mobility and increase physical activity levels naturally. Also, the idea of designing walking trails from home to school which can be appealing to students for going to school on foot has also be discussed for the plan. These “urban trails” could be linked to subjects taught at school such as art, history, biology and so on.
All the consortium partners will meet for the 4th time (3rd face to face meeting) in Brasov, Romania on the 20th – 21st April to discuss the future steps and update what they have done so far for the development of the UActivE Action Plans.
At the end of May, CESIE is planning to organise a local event in a school to disseminate the results of the working group to key stakeholders, families and children from local communities.
“SPAcE – Supporting Policy and Action for Active Environments” is a three year project co-funded by the Sport: Collaborative Partnerships action of the Erasmus+ Programme and aims to integrate active transport programmes. The overall aim of the SPAcE project is to make the healthy choice the easy choice through creating sustainable urban active environments in cities and towns across the European Union.
The project comprises of 10 partners from across 8 EU countries and includes regional governments from Latvia, Romania, Spain and Greece; Higher Education institutions from the UK (Gloucestershire and Oxford), Switzerland and Greece; non-profit government funded organisation from Finland and an NGO from Italy. The project also exchanges with relevant WHO activities and networks.
More information about the SPAcE project can be found at: www.activeenvironments.eu or contact: rosina.ndukwe@cesie.org.