Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

Senior theater project began in January 2014, in a joint work between the social action sector and the culture sector of Silves municipality, in 4 locations: Silves, S.B. de Messines, Armação de Pêra, Tunes.
The aim is to provide theater workshops for elderly over 60+ years old to foster an active mind in a healthy body and promote active aging; to promote the practice of art to people who are not very familiar with the theater; to create a safe community where elderly can feel free of sharing ideas, their knowledge and implication for their performances; to foster the appreciation culture from the public's reaction after the performance. The idea of the project is to create autonomous groups of elderly that are willing to create theatrical moment by themselves and can go on the stage freely. Workshops are being done with the groups on their creativity, collective intelligence, group dynamic and inclusion, writing a text for a performance, healthy behaviours, etc.

Hearing Voices is a project by Marionet, in partnership with MOV (Hearing Voices Movement – Portugal), CES (University of Coimbra Center for Social Studies (CES) and Radio Aurora of Hospital Júlio de Matos, that intends to deal artistically with the hearing voices phenomena, depicting its significance, sensory perception, changes over time, moments of crisis but also of alternatives, and its place in creating a narrative of the self. Most recent research indicates that 4% of western people hears voices. The aim is exploring the ways through which voices can act as important social, cultural and political forces. This project is framed by the activity on the intersection of Theatre and Science, and the exploring of ways to articulate these two fields in the transmission of knowledge. What is proposed, thus, is the creation and public presentation of a theatre show that can foster reflection on the phenomena, together with several other initiatives aimed at a wider promotion of the theme. They are applying research-based theatre methodology, interviewing voice hearers and their caretakers, wherefrom they build the show’s dramaturgy. Aside from that, a sound installation was created to simulate the hearing voices experience, roundtables were held on the theme, podcasts were recorded and promoted together with Radio Aurora, and a set of articles published by the newspaper Público. The whole process was registered on video, with the aim of producing a documentary afterwards. An inquiry is also to be made to the audience of the spectacle so as to evaluate the project’s impact and the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary initiative of this nature. Concerning social intervention, this project means to foster understanding of the hearing voices phenomena as well as the diversity of ways in which it is understood and experienced, defying stereotypes, fighting stigma and discrimination, and promoting positive responses to related experiences, bolstering consciousness of the variegated ways to deal with confusing or difficult voices, creating safe spaces for sharing and involving the media in presenting realistic depictions of the hearing voices phenomena and related experiences.

Adopted in May 2016, The Pact of Amsterdam launched the Urban Agenda for the EU, an EU-wide urban policy initiative concerned with multi-level governance: an umbrella for all urban policy initiatives. It enables cities, Member States, the European Commission and other key stakeholders to come together to jointly address urban issues within the regulatory framework of the EU and provide the EU with more on-the-ground data. Most actions under the Urban Agenda for the EU are delivered through partnerships, each made up of a variety of members. The aim of the Partnership on Culture/Cultural Heritage is to enable municipalities, Member States, EU institutions and interest groups, NGOs and Partners from the industry to work together on an equal footing to find solutions that improve the management of the historic built environment of European cities, promote Culture, and preserve the quality of urban landscapes and heritage. By increasing their knowledge about current and future trends/challenges linked to Culture and social inclusion (this can be about intercultural dialogue, about participation to Culture, about participatory governance of Cultural Heritage etc.), cities will develop policies that have more impact on the targeted population. There will be one peer learning visit (online or on-site, depending on sanitary conditions allowing traveling or not) to test the methodology. The visit will focus on a specific topic linked to Culture and social inclusion. Topics that could be covered during the peer learning activities (to be decided with members of the Partnership) include, among others, also: developing new Partnerships at local level within the Culture sector and other sectors, including social inclusion, health and wellbeing, migration and integration The final scope is to provide a specific tool that can be used also by other initiatives at EU level, specifically dealing with the topics mentioned above.
The Partnership has several strategies, including one for enlarging and enhancing the role of cultural urban services to strengthen the well-being of citizens (Strategy 5).

JA MH-WB, launched in 2013, aims at building a framework for action in mental health policy at the European level and builds on previous work developed under the 2008 European Pact for Mental Health and Well-being. The objective is to contribute to the promotion of mental health and well-being, the prevention of mental disorders and the improvement of care and social inclusion of people with mental disorders in Europe. The initiative also looks at mental heath policies in arts and culture, as reflected in one of its reports, i.e. ”Mental Health in All Policies. Situation analysis and recommendations for action” (sub-chapter ”Cultural activities, the arts and mental health”). The report of the final conference of the Joint Action states that : ”Access to, and participating in, cultural and social activities, as well as outdoor recreation and green spaces promote mental health and wellbeing. Personal safety, the safeguarding of human rights, and community involvement are all conducive to mental health and wellbeing. Interventions to prevent mental disorders include interventions to address inequalities, prevention of childhood adversities and abuse, stopping bullying at school and reduction of stress in the workplace.”
The initiative is coordinated by Nova Medical School (Portugal) and has 51 partners (30 associated and 21 collaborating) representing 28 EU Member States and 11 European organizations.

House of Culture and Well-being is one of the Citizens Programme of the Local Council in the Ajuda neighborhood from Lisboa. It is an open and free space with a daily, regular and varied offer of activities aimed at all ages within the scope of culture and well-being. The goals of the programme are to promote monthly events, such as book launches, music concerts, meetings, cinema; to be a place of conviviality between people who are in a situation of isolation or social exclusion; to develop inter-generational activities; to promote a culture of participation; to give space for young graduates to boost their projects with the community; to create a safe space for socializing and for practicing various activities.

The project's idea started during the preparations for the Basic Mental Health Kit, another initiative of the ManifestaMente organisation. Artists are often the ones who best convey a message, that's why they did song about mental health. The journey of getting their final song: an artist wrote some accessible, play, respectful lyrics about mental health, another artists made some illustrations and animated them to the sound of music and Telma Pereira was chosen as singer. In this initiative ManifestaMente is engaging and challenging the general public/ artists to share the song, invite others to do another version of the song and sing it, to create their own version of the song and share the created content via social media channels, by using #cantarpelasaudemental. The last challenge would be to create a personal song on the mental health topic.

Art for Health is collaborative project, under the big umbrella of projects for the candidacy of Faro city to become the European Capital of Culture in 2027. The aim of the project is to promote the well-being (physical, mental and social) of health professionals through culture in the city's hospital, especially after an overwhelming pandemic for everyone. Art relieves the emotional tension felt by health professionals and tension is even greater nowadays. The pandemic has changed the daily lives of all of us, but especially of those who are in contact with patients. Artistic interventions took place in the cafeteria of the hospital, because this is a space through which all the hospital's health professionals pass: doctors, executives, administrative staff, technicians, nurses, auxiliary staff, etc. The artworks to be exhibited results from conversations carried out between the artists, health professionals and the Faro2027 team. All users of the cafeteria have the chance to get in touch with the artist through digital means.

The Pharmacy Museum in Porto carried out a thematic visit, entitled "Art and Health", on August 24th 2020 to mark the Artist's Day. The visitors were invited to take a journey through the way art has served health over the centuries. The objective was to present the history of health and pharmacy over time, relating, in the context of its collection, the different cultures and civilizations that are part of its permanent exhibition.
Participants took a journey through the history of health and pharmacy, where different artistic manifestations of each people and civilization were unveiled, from the iconography of ancient Egypt, using anthropomorphic forms, through Italian majolica at the service of iconography religious, to the representation of elements of nature in the exotic Islamic pharmacy.

The Stalwarts project aimed to promote relational health in schools through engagement with arts. It was an innovative cross-sectoral higher education project based in 5 European countries: Estonia, Italy, Norway, Portugal and the UK. It brought together 3 inter-disciplinary/professional groups: school-based teachers and educators; creative arts therapists/trainers and university staff. The teachers and educators were drawn from 5 different contexts: one residential special school; one ‘second chance’ school; one ‘production’ school and two mainstream schools that specifically prioritise inclusive educational practice. National partnerships were established between the schools and their local universities involving creative arts therapists, researchers and specialists in inclusive educational practice and music education.
One of the project’s outputs was: ‘A Framework for Impact Studies.’ This output includes comprehensive guidelines on the planning, implementation and evaluation of small-scale classroom-based enquiries (impact studies) in this innovative field of therapeutically-informed teaching practice. 35 enquiries were conducted by the teachers and educators in the 5 schools during the first year; 86 during the second, as part of the university modules.

Another new initiative in STALWARTS was the introduction of theoretical underpinning and relevant measures relating to the impact of music and the arts on affective and cognitive function using a neuroscience-informed approach. The strapline for the STALWARTS project was ‘Relational Health in Schools,’ with the intended impact of embedding policy in learning and practice. Hence, the main target group for the whole partnership was those children and young people affected by adverse life conditions, including early childhood trauma. This related to another project output: ‘Relational Health in Schools in Context.’ This resource for the modules includes relevant national policy documents and theoretical contexts for promoting relational health and wellbeing in European schools and with an objective to reduce ELET (Early Leaving from Education and Training). There was reference throughout STALWARTS to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in safeguarding young people’s entitlements to music and arts experiences.

The general objective of the project is the inclusion of adults with and without disabilities through art and creative expression. The project seeks to work across stigma, isolation, social exclusion and the difficulty of access to the cultural and artistic world through empowerment, training, and the creation of participatory spaces. Delyramus et Laboramus will continue the work of a consortium that has already collaborated in a previous project co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme (Delyramus: Developing Audiences: Music, Luthiers and Mental Health, 2018-2020), reinforcing its objectives, updated by the results obtained and the accumulated experience, increasing its impact and giving a step further to ensure the sustainability of the project.