It is always exciting to get to the first actual meeting in a new project. In the Forgotten Fish project this meant a visit to the Foggia province of Apulia, Italy.

Given the purpose of the project – to find new paths to enable gastronomical entrepreneurs to transform forgotten fish species into new culinary experiences and a contribution to a transformation towards sustainable food systems – this was a golden opportunity to also connect history with future.

In addition to a series of microtrainings, we got to experience the traditional (but challenged by climate change) fishing communities in Peschisi, artisinal wine making practices in San Severo, and bread making (from flour to fork) in Foggia it self.

Amazing landscape, people, tastes, and history. And a great meeting for our Greek, Italian, and Danish consortium. We look forward to meeting in Syros and Ærø – almost worlds apart, but connected by sea, cooking, and fish.

With project partners in Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Hungary, NWA was excited to join the kick off meeting in Limoges, France for the MentaStress project: Empowering First Responders for Better Mental Health in Crisis Situations.

The project is an innovative EU-wide initiative designed to both enhance first responders’  efficiency in emergencies and to support their mental well-being before and after.

The project will develop learning materials based on real life crisis events, and a multilingual platform to support the first responders and raise awareness. We will also explore and build augmented reality tools to create immersive stress-management training for first responders and carry out training in five EU countries to validate tools and content. This will help us build a comprehensive stress management guide.

MentaStress connects 9 partners across 7 EU countries, spans over 24 months and includes pilot programs, research, events, and seminars, creating an inclusive platform that targets broad engagement and sustainability.

We aim to shape policies in crisis management and mental health at both the national and EU levels. By fostering cross-sector cooperation, MentaStress will offer scalable and transferable training solutions, improving crisis response and mental health support for first responders and the community.

Smart Health Age-Friendly Environments are the purpose of the SHAFE Foundation. NWA has the great honour of participating in the EU Week for Sustainable and Inclusive Communities: the future is SHAFE – taking place October 1-3, 2024.

NWA participated with a presentation on “Looking at the future: health and wellbeing European citizens” and talk about trust, accountability and KPIs, about cross-sector collaboration, and about horizon scanning as a tool for strategy and progress.

Read more at the event site here – or read about the SHAFE Foundation here and their amazing work explore and promote age-friendly progress in Europe.

Cool news – a new project to explore the use of Forgotten Fish

Forgotten fish are species underused by industrial fishing due to their small size or failure to reach a threshold for commercial trade, thus being underused in mass consumption and catering. Usually caught accidentally, they are discarded, contributing to waste and a lower respect for marine biodiversity (WWF, “The World’s Forgotten Fishes”, 2021).

Even if they are forgotten by industrial fishing, these could be an essential resource for artisanal fishing and environmental conservation since they can be caught in limited periods of the year. Due to the rapidity of their reproductive cycle, they are not at risk of extinction. However, the limited awareness and knowledge of forgotten fish lead to their underutilization and undervaluation in catering. Consequently, catering operators and VET centers are unfamiliar with these species and either do not use them or lack adequate synergies with artisanal fishing to make efficient and innovative use of them in catering.

The objectives of this project are:
A. Increase the knowledge and skills of catering operators in the use of forgotten fish.
B. Foster synergies between restaurateurs and artisanal fishermen in the use of forgotten fish.
C. Promote the use and promotion of forgotten fish in catering.

In this project we partner with Italian and Greek partners, in a consortium led by the amazing restaurant in Marstang Mad&Vin from Marstal, Ærø in Denmark – exploring practices from 2024-2026.

Mental health – stress management for first responders through augmented reality in disasters

As a new experience, we’ll be part of a French-led consortium to explore better pathways towards mental health in a very challenging workplace – disaster, accidents, and crisis. With 8 other partners from France, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Spain, we’ll be able from 2024-2026 to not just explore and develop better practices, but also integrate new technology for relief, awareness, management, and possibly rehabilitation in the MentaStress project.

Our project will look nothing like the image of minions – but like them, we humans are simply trying to do our best in challenging circumstances.  We’ll be back with more asap.

In 2023 we began considering how different uses of the Erasmus+ framework might be a method to share Danish experiences across borders and facilitating knowledge sharing between sectors and silos.

The Erasmus+ programme enables thousands of projects for professional knowledge sharing, but also enable interpersonal upskilling. Read more about the almost endless possibilities, results, and tools here.

We will be trying to explore new ideas, given our previous experience from projects like:
Dem@Mentoring (supporting informal carers for people with dementia)
ECARIS (supporting informal carers for kidney patients)
RECADE (building a guide for rehabilitiation)
Art4Me (exploring uses of art and creativity for mental health)
INFOCARE (exploring digital support for people with dementia)
Well@SME (building a digital platform to support mental health at SME workplaces)
eHealth4Cancer (exploring digital tools for cancer support)

In 2023 EuroHealthNet organised a debate during the WHO 7th Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in Budapest. The conference connected ministries and organisations across Europe – indeed globally – to discuss the important interaction of environmental changes on health and health systems; but vice versa also the important impact and potential the health systems have for environment and the policies that connect the two areas.

Lars Münter represented Danish and Nordic ideas from his work in the Danish Committee for Health Education, the Danish Council for Better Hygiene, the Self-Care in Europe Initiative, and the Nordic Health 2030 Movement.

Read more about the conference here.