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Youth Health Literacy in the context of NCDs

2020-2-SI02-KA105-0156012020Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: SI|IT|EL|LT|PT|TR|HR|CY|BE|ME|EE|MK · Grant: €20,855
Health and wellbeingYouth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Objectives

The project was based on the fact that almost half of the population of Europe (including young people) is illiterate/low literate in a very important area - health. The big goal was that we want to contribute to improving the health literacy of young people, to improve the current health situation and also as an investment for the future, to prevent chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which represent the greatest disease burden in our society (including mental health disorders) and which are increasingly widespread among young people. We wanted to empower youth workers and youth leaders by improving their health literacy skills and related skills to deliver health information to young people. The goal of competence development in the early life period is the appropriate recognition, understanding and use of health information by young people and, as a result, a higher level of health literacy. At the organizational level, we wanted to get youth organizations to adopt policies for a healthy and safe environment for young people, and to stop implementing any practices harmful to health. Uniting and connecting non-governmental organizations in the field of youth health literacy was also an important goal, which acted as a base for exchanging experiences, good practices and building capacities for work. Through the above, we also addressed the general and specific goals of the Erasmus+ program, e.g. about reducing the marginalization of the sick, reducing inequality towards young people with health problems, empowerment for policy reform at all levels (local, national, regional and higher), quality exchange in an intercultural environment. The three specific objectives of the activity were: 1) Increase participants' awareness of health literacy and NCDs. 2) Improve participants' skills to successfully implement activities and policies in their local environment (both in their organization and the wider community) that have been proven to increase health literacy. 3) Establish the "Youth Health Literacy Alliance" - an informal European youth alliance for health literacy as a professional-social network of organizations working in the field of youth health literacy.

Project partners (12)