Interreg Europe GREENHEALTH – six months after the Kick-Off Meeting
Six months ago, on the 11 of May, we reported on the Kick-Off Meeting of the Interreg Europe GREENHEALTH in Murcia, Spain.
The GREENHEALTH project wants to create linkages between health and environmental policies and incorporating human health initiatives into Protected Area programmes.
The first six months have been ones of intense work, dialogue, capacity building and communication among the partners and with key stakeholders. The first exchanges and intentions were established at regional level to trigger and showcase the potential that each region can generate in the field of biodiversity and health.
What happened in the cooperating regions?
Each partner institution established the so called “Local Living Labs” (LLL) in their region or area of operation. LLL are “spaces” where each project partner can meet their key stakeholders and discuss the existing and potential initiatives that can take place in their area of operation both in the short and long term.
Each project partner organised two Local Living Labs in their own region. If the first LLL was about introducing the project to key interlocutors, the second one focused on sharing the knowledge of what are the existing initiatives in the regions and which potentials are still not exploited or are under-utilised. What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for each region? Each partner conducted a SWOT analysis alongside a regional study.
The methodology to create this baseline was developed by EUROPARC Spain, in consultation with EUROPARC Federation and the HPHPe Commission. EUROPARC Spain has supported the Lead Partner technically and is also consolidating the results emanating from each region. An online creative thinking and discussion forum took place at the end of October to discuss the preliminary results of the analysis, which is the base for a roadmap.
Most project partners also organised regional launching conferences.
The role of EUROPARC Federation and the Healthy Parks Healthy People Europe (HPHPe) Commission
But what did the work of EUROPARC Federation consisted on in the first semester? And what was the contribution of the HPHPe Commission to the project?
EUROPARC Federation is advisory partner for communication, capacity building and engagement.
The HPHPe Commission strongly backed the partnership by providing training during the Kick-Off-Meeting and through an online session on the HPHPe programme and toolkit. The latter represent a compass, which underpins the GREENHEALTH methodology to identify good practices in different regions. The HPHPe tools are also showcasing the enabling cooperation factors to effectively implement regional initiatives triggering health and biodiversity outcomes alike.
On the communications side, EUROPARC Federation supported the consortium by developing a first communication strategy.
The main deliverables include (but are not limited to): the establishment and upkeep of Social Media channels (Instagram, X and YouTube), the first newsletter and project video (both in six languages), the organisation of two online sessions for partners on communication and stakeholder engagement. The project website, hosted by the Interreg Europe Programme, was also populated and updated.
To share information about GREENHEALTH within our network, we took the chance to give information about the project during the EUROPARC Conference 2023 marketplace and provided a session about Wild Ways Well to Wellbeing in the HPHPe walk-shop.
What now?
EUROPARC Federation, hand-in-hand with the HPHPe Commission is preparing for the first Inter-Regional Learning Event in Croatia. Here the partners will have the chance to showcase best practices from their regions in the first thematic area of the project “Management of Protected Areas”.
Update December 2023: the Event Report is being finalised.
Stay tuned and check https://www.interregeurope.eu/greenhealth
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