This project consisted of one activity – a seminar with the title “Mainstream health, mainstream gender” hosted by PENTHESILEIA in Athens, Greece, from 16th to 23rd February 2015, gathering together 36 youth workers, youth leaders, activists, associates and volunteers from 10 partner organizations active in the European Union countries and Western Balkans: Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, Albania, Italy, Kosovo, FYROM and Romania.
Sedentary lifestyles, addictions, unhealthy nutrition and disease, still present discrimination of women on different societal strata remain one of the most salient problems in today’s Europe, in particular in those regions that are beyond EU legislation and regulations, but not lacking problems in countries of modern Europe. Therefore, the activities within the seminar focused on healthy lifestyles of young people especially women in Europe and the influence of its promotion on young people’s life and behavior in our societies.
The objectives of the project were:
- To provide space and time for youth organizations working on healthy life issues among youth and healthy lifestyles to present their work,
- To exchange examples of good practice,
- To focus on the debate of the state of health in different realities of Europe and to reflect upon gender dimension of health,
- To explore different techniques as a means of promotion of positives of healthy lifestyles in terms of better communication with young people especially girls,
- To foster future cooperation and young people’s involvement in the process of creation of better approaches towards youth,
- To reflect on issues of health insurance policies and equality programmes of the European Union,
- To create and run follow-up activities in order to influence issues of marginalization of women and girls and to replace social exclusion with gender mainstreaming in healthcare.
The project was biased towards and reached as an impact improvement of the quality of support systems for activities aimed at the empowerment of young people especially young women in matters concerning health. It also provided space, time, chances and opportunities for intercultural dialogue and encouragement for future transnational cooperation and joint activities concerning the main topics that were stemmed through the workshops and working sessions facilitated by experts.
Using planned non-formal and informal educational methods, participants were involved in individual and group work, brainstorming, discussions, round tables, debates, presentations, role plays, analyses, summaries and open space technology.
