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SHAFE . LargeScaleSkills . Pact 4Skills . EURAHL . EHFF . EU Covenant

SHAFE Foundation - Smart, Healthy Age-Friendly Environments

A new concept was created since 2017, based on the desire to implement Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments (SHAFE) across Europe, fostering happier and healthier people in all communities. This idea took shape and became a solid movement.

SHAFE began as a Thematic Network, approved by the European Commission, to draw policy makers, organisations and citizens’ attention to the need of better alignment between health, social care, built environments and ICT, both in policy and funding and delivered a and a in December 2018 to the European Commission and Member States.

After this, SHAFE evolved to a European Stakeholders Network, with over 170 partner organisations, and more recently to a Foundation, with Carina Dantas and Willeke van Staalduinen serving as Directors. It is working to achieve better COOPERATION and IMPLEMENTATION, as an opportunity for the digital revolution to be well thought and implemented, if all the adequate challenges are well considered and tackled.

Large Scale Skills Partnership for the Industrial Cultural and Creative Regional Ecosystems

SHINE2Europe is Member of the Steering Committee of the Large scale skills partnership for the Industrial Cultural and Creative Regional Ecosystems.

“All the organisations that support the Creative Pact for Skills Manifesto recognise the importance of thriving talents and skilled workers in the European Cultural and Creative Industries ecosystem and all its sectors. Therefore, they decide to establish a large-scale partnership to promote and facilitate the re-skilling and up-skilling of the creative workforce, to support the aims of this manifesto, to mutualise and pool resources, and to engage in the concrete initiatives and actions it promotes”.

To support the manifesto and join the partnership, organisations are kindly asked to fill in the online form available here: Endorsement of C-P4S Manifesto

The online version of the Pact for Skills -C-P4S Manifesto can be viewed under: https://bit.ly/C-P4S_Manifesto

Pact for Skills for the Proximity and Social Economy ecosystem

SHINE is a Member of the Focus Group of the EU Pact for Skills for the Proximity and Social Economy ecosystem, which includes social enterprises, associations and cooperatives that aim to generate a social impact.

To ensure the social economy can continue to create inclusive employment and remain competitive, many social economy organisations, investors, banks, and other legal entities will require upskilling and reskilling of the ecosystem’s workforce, considering the green and digital transition.

The Skills partnership, represented by social partners, European, national and regional SE organisations, education and research institutions, regional and local authorities, and clusters, aims to identify statistical information on key upskilling and reskilling needs of social economy employees and entrepreneurs, and mobilise public and private capital.

Through its activities, the Proximity & Social Economy LSP aims to promote upskilling and reskilling of 5% of the workforce each year by 2030 across the ecosystem. To reach this target, the partners commit to establishing a skills alliance and sharing intelligence about skills needs with educators.

EURAHL | EU Coalition for Active and Healthy Living

SHINE 2Europe is one of the founding members of the EURAHL | European Coalition for Active and Healthy Living, which aims to strengthen connections, promote synergies and bring together the voices of European Networks working in the field of Active and Healthy Living.
It gathers a group of associations representing stakeholders active in the broader European Active and Healthy Living (AHL) arena, which include SHINE and AFEdemy, as promotors of the SHAFE Foundation (Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments) and former Chairs of the COST Action NET4Age-Friendly.

The main goals of the Coalition are:

Bringing together all the relevant networks and associations with an interest in active and healthy living to influence and inform the development of AHL policies and actions at European, national, and regional levels.
Developing stakeholders’ understanding of active and healthy living and the role played by the different EURAHL partner associations.
Promoting the concept of active and healthy living and collaborative initiatives among the networks and associations engaged in the Coalition.
Developing synergies and collaborations across networks and associations to ensure greater harmonisation of AHL activities and initiatives.
Signposting and access to the resources and expertise of the Partner networks.

These goals are completely aligned with the concept behind NET4Age-Friendly and the SHAFE Foundation. Integrating EURAHL, we will advocate for solutions and environments that include, adapt, grow, and respond to the personal needs of people of any age or condition.

EHFF | European Health Futures Forum This is an NGO

Carina Dantas, SHINE’s CEO is a Member of the European Health Futures Forum. This NGO departs from the view that a small organisation cannot directly change a huge system that has powerful vested interests represented in it, but can act as a stimulus, working in concert with like-minded other parties, to changing attitudes and perspectives on health and healthcare in society in a constructive way.

Currently most participants in health and healthcare are trapped within a paradigm that most people agree is inherently unsustainable but don’t see how to break out of this.

EHFF primary role is to work with others to find potential solutions to this dilemma.

European Covenant on Demographic Change

The Covenant, which was formally dissolved in 2023, aimed to gather all local, regional and national authorities, and other stakeholders, that commit to cooperate and implement evidence-based solutions to support active and healthy ageing as a comprehensive answer to Europe’s demographic challenge.

Carina Dantas was the Vice-President since 2016. It supported local and regional authorities, and other stakeholders, in developing environments for active and healthy ageing that:

improve healthy life year expectancy (HLY);
enhance opportunities for independent living of older people and;
support a society for all ages.

To reach these objectives, the Covenant was open to all interested parties (i.e. local, regional and national authorities, as well as civil society organisations, industries, research centres and universities) that voluntarily commit to making age-friendly environments a reality in their communities and to share their experience with other Covenant members.

Full members of the Covenant committed to develop an action plan on age-friendly environments, i.e. one or several of the eight domains of the WHO age-friendly environments approach: housing, transport, community services and health services, outdoor spaces and buildings, social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication and information.