04.12.2020
The Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council's 'We are with you' campaign receives the Euskadi Lagunkoia Good Practices Award in 2020
Beatriz Artolazabal, Minister for Equality of the Basque Government, opened the conference on good European practices in friendliness in the context of Covid19, organised by Euskadi Lagunkoia, at the Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao. At the opening, Artolazabal was accompanied by Juan Ibarretxe, councillor of the Bilbao City Council.
The aim of this conference, which is now in its fourth year, is to share innovative and creative experiences that will serve as inspiration for the development of friendliness in the Basque Country. "Each municipality, town or city faces challenges and needs to adapt to the ageing process of its population and discovering how different good practices have been developed in other places is of great interest" Artolazabal highlighted.
This year, the conference revolved around the situation arising from the pandemic, as institutions have sought solutions to enable older people to benefit from and contribute to the covid-19 response. This same circumstance has meant that some of the speeches have been given telematically and the event itself has been broadcast entirely online.
During the conference, the Euskadi Lagunkoia Good Practices in Friendship created by the Euskadi Lagunkoia Network was also awarded. This award values those practices developed by entities in the Basque Country that stand out for their innovation and efficiency in terms of friendliness in generating facilitating living environments for the elderly. This year, the Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council's 'We are with you' campaign received the award, while the runner-up prize went to Nagusilan's 'Silver Thread' practice.
The first conference of the day was given by Christopher Phillipson, professor at the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing, under the title 'Communities and covid-19: Developing an age-friendly recovery plan'. Phillipson is an expert in Sociology and Social Gerontology at the University of Manchester.
Following his speech, a round table of good practices was held at European level and another at regional level. Thomas Scharf from the University of Newcastle and President of the British Society of Gerontology and Paul Mc Garry from the Manchester Ageing Hub took part in the former. In the second, Ricardo Antón de ColaBoraBora and Aitor Abecia, Mayor of Zambrana, took part.
Basque Country Lagunkoia
The Basque network of friendliness, Euskadi Lagunkoia, which is promoted by the Department of Equality, Justice and Social Policies, and which has been joined to date by 64 Basque town councils, aims to promote the participation of citizens and the public, private and social sectors to develop a friendliness movement in the promotion of facilitating living environments for the elderly. This initiative is based on the Age-friendly Environments Programme promoted by the World Health Organization.