Title and acronym: Health without Borders [HwB]

Project type: Erasmus+ KA2 Project, Strategic Partnership for Youth

Ref. no.: 2020-2-ATO2-KA205-002816

Promoter /Coordinator: InterAktion - Verein für ein interkulturelles Zusammenleben, Austria

Duration: 01.09.2020 to 31.08.2022

Total project grant: 124.955 Euro

Total expenditure (grant) for the University of Pitești: 16.518 Euro

Local coordinator for the University of Piteşti: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Georgeta CHIRLEȘAN

Summary:

            There is growing evidence that health and education are closely linked and influence other parameters such as poverty and income levels. It is known that education has the power to improve not only prosperity, but it has a huge effect on health outcomes. Despite the immense benefits, health literacy remains a challenge for the European public health. Research findings refer that more than a third of the EU population face difficulties in finding, understanding, evaluating and using information to manage their health (Sørensen et al., 2015). It is also important to emphasise that nowadays, the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading around the world. Health literacy must carry a significant impact during this pandemic in order to combat the faster spread of the virus. Considering these global pandemic developments, one of the main challenges is to provide appropriate healthcare and education to migrants and refugees throughout Europe. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warns that the new wave of refugees arriving in Europe are living with very poor sanitary conditions, which are especially vulnerable to the pandemic. Therefore, difficult access to education and health literacy make this population extremely vulnerable. UNESCO recommends that education for health literacy should be learned in the same way as all other fields, both in formal and non-formal learning environments. Just as youngsters learn social habits that will enable them to face problems on their communities’ daily life, they must also learn and acquire the knowledge and habits of health that will enable them to achieve the highest possible degree of physical, mental and social health (Sanmarti, 1988). Health Literacy is a powerful strategy to contribute to the improvement of the population’s well-being, promoting citizenship in health, making people more autonomous and responsible for their own health and of those who depend on them and their community. For this reason, Health Without Borders project is to improve health literacy skills in young migrants, refugees and marginalised youngsters in an embedded learning perspective, while promoting a set of socio educational innovative approaches for front-line youth workers to raise awareness with young migrants and refugees about the importance of health literacy in their daily lives.

Project target-groups are:

a) Young migrants, refugees and marginalised young people;

b) Youth workers, social work specialists and non-formal educators.

Objectives:

The project aims to:

• foster Health Literacy skills, competences and attitudes by facilitating the access to audio-visual health information and improve their availability, while providing embedded learning opportunities;
• help the target group to better understand the principles of health literacy;
• facilitate the understanding of the importance of a cohesive communication strategy while working on health literacy with marginalised youth;
• facilitate the understanding of the principles and benefits of embedded learning environments with youth, of using comics, storytelling and gamification strategies while working with marginalised youth;
• to enable the access to all educational materials of the project in bite-sized units, according to the target-group learning needs;
• establish a Health Literacy Repository, which will selectively disseminate projects and instruments that configure good practices in health education and literacy in the countries of the consortium;
• facilitate peer-to-peer learning through a collaborative platform.

Outcomes:

• IO1 - Health Literacy Toolkit of Resources
• IO2 - In-Service Training Programme
• IO3 - Online Portal

Partnership:

1. INTERAKTION - VEREIN FÜR EIN INTERKULTURELLES ZUSAMMENLEBEN – Austria (Coordinator)
2. UNIVERSITATEA DIN PITESTI - Romania
3. RIGHTCHALLENGE – ASSOCIAÇÃO - Portugal
4. AURIVE SOCIETA' COOPERATIVA SOCIALE - Italy
5. CHRISTLICHES JUGENDDORFWERK DEUTSCHLANDS GEMEINNUTZIGER EV - Germany

Project website: https://kultur-life.de/projekte/health-without-borders