Building Healthy Communities Project – Turin Local Support Group
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09 October 2017Led by the city of Turin, Building Healthy Communities (BHC) is an URBACT project working on urban factors influencing health and opportunities for cities to shape and implement healthy policies for their citizens. To comply with URBACT programme requirement, Turin has set up a Local Support Group to make sure that exchanges have an impact on local practices and policies. This group gathers the main interested parties and local actors concerned by the project topic. As BHC Lead Partner, Luisa Avedano has interviewed Maria Carmela Ricciardi and Silvia Bighi, members of the Turin URBACT Local Support Group. Here is a look at their objectives, challenges and first achievements.
What are the objectives of your URBACT Local Support Group?
The Turin Local Support Group was created as a part of a bigger group of professionals and stakeholders whose common work is focussed in the design of a huge complex urban regeneration programme named PISU (Integrated Programme of Urban Development) located in a neighbourhood called Barriera di Milano. The area is characterised by numerous dismissed industrial sites.
For these reasons, the Turin URBACT Local Support Group is designing its Local Action Plan with the purpose of including a number of actions on quality of life and healthy life styles within the PISU. These actions will be "BHC" labelled and considered, as pilot actions.
The Turin URBACT Local Support Group is also working on a transversal action aiming at applying indicators on health and quality of life to the whole urban regeneration programme.
Who is involved in your Local Support Group?
The Turin Local Support Group has a concentric structure whose core group has been working since the very beginning of the project. It is composed by professionals and stakeholders belonging to the:
- Department of Structural Funds, Economic Development and Employment
- Urban Regeneration and Integration Sector
- Department for City Planning
- Social Affairs Department
- District 6
- University of Turin
- Regional Health Service
- Professional Institutes
- Sport and Leisure Local Associations
What has your Local Support Group achieved so far?
The Turin Local Support Group has elaborated 3 actions within the framework of PISU P.I.S.U. - AXIS 3 SOCIAL INTERVENTIONS – MEASURE C 3.3
- ACTION 1 - Promoting traditional medicine and integrated models for a healthy lifestyle to sustain integration of migrant population based on a local mapping of the existing health systems used by migrants.
It will be testing actions for facilitating access to health services, promoting information and communication tools, integrating health services to traditional medicine(s), identifying a specific desk for delivering services. This action will start in February 2011 and close in April 2014.
- ACTION 2 - Promoting a healthy and sustainable lifestyle among young people and valorising existing sport facilities in the borough based on an analysis of the associations as well as of their respective offers in terms of sport and health promotion.
Questionnaires and interviews will be conducted and the associations with a positive assessment will get a "quality label". This action will start in February 2011 and close in April 2014.
- ACTION 3 - Quality of life/Health impact indicators
On the basis of BHC toolkit on indicators, an "ad hoc" instrument will be developed and applied to the ordinary and extraordinary programmes/ projects of the city. This action will start in February 2011 and close in April 2014.
The budget dedicated to the C 3.3 actions is € 150.000, a part of the 25 million euro of the Barriera di Milano integrated programme. All the actions developed by the Turin URBACT Local Support Group will get the label "BHC" in order to give more visibility and strength to the BHC approach.
What challenges does your Local Support Group face?
The Local Support Group represents an interesting way of working together giving the opportunity of a teamwork not given for granted at the beginning of the project.
The most challenging aspect of this teamwork was the fact that the Local Action Plan had to be part of a more articulated and complex project located in a large and variegated neighbourhood.
How has your Local Support Group been involved in the transnational elements of the URBACT BHC project and what benefits has this brought to your local work?
The participations in the 3 thematic workshops as well as in the multilateral exchanges in Belfast, Barnsley and Madrid gave the opportunity of an in depth understanding of different working approaches and methodologies.
The possibility of face to face meetings was an excellent occasion for sharing not only success but difficulties and common problems.
Read more:
- BHC - URBACT website
Download newsletter08_final.pdf (1.35 MB) - PDF- Quality Sustainable Living - Thematic Cluster - URBACT website
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