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Climate vs Health

2022-3-BE05-KA152-YOU-0000932062022Mobility of young peoplefinalized
Countries: BE|ES|AZ|IT|GE|TR · Grant: €28,801.17
Environment and climate changePhysical and mental health, well-beingKey competences development

Objectives

Promoting mental health and preventing mental ill-health has been a public health issue for decades. By this project, we wanted to talk and raise awareness on mental health to understand that this issue is part of everybody's life, and that nobody is alone in this. In addition to social issues, there are environmental issues which become a threat to our mental health. Its impacts are different such as extreme weather events, droughts, flooding which affects our health and mental health. The mental health consequences of events linked to a changing global climate include mild stress and distress, high-risk coping behavior such as increased alcohol use and, occasionally, mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. Mental health problems among young people are one of the biggest concerns of our time. Diverse studies show that climate anxiety is associated with perceptions of inadequate action by adults and governments, feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and moral damage. Climate change has significant implications for the health and future of young people. So far, young people don't have enough capacity to mitigate the damage, making them vulnerable to increasing climate anxiety. Taking these facts into consideration, we decided to make this problem visible, talk about it and share our insights. Understanding mental health related to the climate crisis, standardizing therapeutic help, and being able to talk about it openly can help thousands of young people who are suffering in silence. Therefore, we implemented “Climate vs Health” mobility for young people where we raised awareness on the topic, empowered young people on the importance of mental health and discussed the link of climate change to our mental health via various sessions, workshops. Key objectives were as following: talking about how the climate crisis affects health in particular mental health; spreading knowledge among young people about what mental health is, identifying its components, recognizing challenging situations for mental well-being; informing and fostering the discussion among young people raising awareness on the importance of mental health and reducing stigma; building a community of informed young leaders recognizing the importance of active participation and promoting mental health activities in their communities; giving youth tools to engage and mitigate mental health issues linked to the climate crisis to ensure that young people are more intertwined with nature to increase knowledge of the participants on Erasmus+ to stimulate non-formal learning and outdoor education to promote cultural awareness, tolerance and solidarity between countries

Project partners (6)