The final launch event in Italy for the SPAcE project took place on 20th December 2017 at Moltivolti, a multicultural centre in Palermo, Italy. CESIE organised a meeting with the students and teachers of the school “Benedetto Croce” Lyceum, who as part of the activities for the Urban Active Environment (UActiVE) Action Plan for Palermo developed by CESIE, have been developing a collection of urban trails from home to school during the last months to support the Plans implementation and sustainability.
CESIE’s main role in SPAcE – Supporting Policy and Action for Active Environments has been to lead the development of the UActivE Action Plan for the city of Palermo in order to address low levels of physical activity in the community and promote physical activity-friendly environments. Using a co-productive model, CESIE has collaborated with local communities as well as local government together with school teachers, students, mobility associations and architects. The Action Plan focuses on addressing child overweight and obesity levels and the school environment through the development of programmes to increase physical activity in and out of school. The two main goals of the Plan have been to develop a “School Urban Trails Programme – Urban trekking from home to school to playground” that encourages children to walk and cycle to school and areas of play with the use of ‘Walking Guides’, mobile app and incorporating historical monuments of the city within the urban trails. The second goal was to develop an “Active School Districts” programme that aims to make use of school recreational facilities during after school hours and improving the facilities offered by school buildings for maintaining a physical active friendly environment within local communities.
The final event on 20th December was the occasion to present the work done by the students in the classroom in developing their own School Urban Trails Programme using the research results of the project and activities advocated in the Action Plan, to all the teachers and the Dean of the school. The event included a presentation of the final three outputs of the project to the students, teachers and members of the Working Group that helped to develop the plan and also to key stakeholders in school education and sustainable mobility.
To view the final UActivE Plan for the city of Palermo developed by CESIE – “Palermo – home of active and healthy school communities” please click here.
The other UActivE Action Plans developed for the other partner countries in Trikala (Greece), Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), Brasov (Romania) and Tukums (Latvia), are now available on the SPAcE project website together with the final 3 outputs of the projects:
- Supporting Policy and Action for Active Environments – Environments for physical activity in Europe a review of evidence and examples of practice
- How to create an Urban Active Environment (UActivE) Action Plan – Lessons learnt and case studies from five European cities from the SPAcE EU project
- Measuring the value of an Urban Active Environment, using the WHO Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT)
The SPAcE project is funded by Erasmus+ Sport: Support to Collaborative Partnerships programme aims to integrate active transport programmes (i.e. walking to school, cycle to work schemes etc.) into public policy across the European Union. 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.
For more information about the work to develop the UACtivE Action Plan in Palermo please contact: rosina.ndukwe@cesie.org.