Community engagement
towards mental wellbeing. At the forum, Nigel and I, and members of the CCG network, met with a number of Euro MPs, commissioners, policy-makers, and delegates from throughout Europe, including the world-renowned dancer and choreographer, Andrew Greenwood, the director and co-founder of the Dance and Creative Wellness Foundation. As a dancer, choreographer, and artistic director, he has seen enormous changes in the funding of the arts, and has thus had to learn new ways of external collaboration and cooperation, and drawn the attention of a completely new public. In 2012, when a good friend of his was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he decided to put his love and knowledge of dance and movement to another use, establishing the international foundation, Dance for Health.
Community members during their visit to the European Parliament.
CHANGING PEOPLE’S LIVES Andrew Greenwood explained: “Dance for Health is aiming to change people’s lives by offering specific movement programmes for people with physical and mental impairment, such as Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis.” In 2015, the programme ran in 15 cities across The Netherlands, as well as internationally in Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, and Australia. There is an on-going collaboration between Het National Ballet (NL) and medical university, the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Together with Dance for Health, they are conducting medical research on the results of a specific movement programme for sufferers of Multiple Sclerosis, and its effects on the neuroplasticity of the brain. Andrew’s drive is ‘to change, upgrade, and personalise, the health industry by offering accessible, achievable, artistic-based creative initiatives’. All in all he was very positive toward the forum and the MEPs’ willingness to listen to a well-informed argument. He said: “We had the chance to lobby with policy-makers on the potential benefits of dance in health and wellness. We had the good fortune to have Russell Hogarth and Nigel Farnworth and colleagues from the UK Creative Communities Group at the event. I was very interested to engage with them, and to understand their work and vision.”
DANCE’S POSITIVE BENEFITS The Moving towards mental wellbeing forum was an opportunity to discuss a number of areas relating to the positive benefits of dance on both physical and psychological health, including: l Education: It was an opportunity to share with policy-makers, organisations, institutions, and individuals, that there has been a lot of groundwork on the subject of dance. Andrew Greenwood shared this scientific and creative knowledge to show that dance has similar health benefits to yoga or tai chi.
l Science, communication, and research: Andrew Greenwood shared correlating and commissioned research. Many were unaware of the wealth of evidence to show the benefits of dance as a prevention and enablement intervention.
l Stakeholders: Andrew’s aim was to create a space for practitioners, researchers,
26 THE NETWORK OCTOBER 2018
Pauline Boivin, Project and Policy officer at the Lifelong Learning Platform, with Nigel Farnworth.
scientists, policy-makers, institutions, organisations, and individuals, to share and create dance as a tool in health and wellness.
l Sustainable social impact: This meeting helped Andrew to discover the benchmark needed to reduce risk and maximise dance as a tool in health and wellness.
Moving towards mental wellbeing speakers included: l Julie Ward MEP (UK) – for the NW England region for the Labour Party (Committee on Culture and Education).
l Annabelle Couillandre (Fr) – Associate Professor, Université Paris Nanterre.
l Tim Joss (UK) – chief executive & founder, Aesop – Arts Enterprise for a Social Purpose.
l Begoñia San José (Fr) – clinical psychologist, head of Health Partnerships & Business Development, Axa France.
l Dr Andrew McWilliams (UK) – NIHR-funded academic Clinical Fellow, South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust & Institute for Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London.
l Clare Guss-West (CH) – director and co- founder, Dance & Creative Wellness
Foundation, Netherlands, and ‘Dancing Longevity’ specialist dance for Older Adults.
l Andrew Greenwood (NL) – director & co- founder, Dance & Creative Wellness Foundation, Netherlands. director, Switch2Move, specialist dance and special needs.
l Eldridge Labinjo (NL) – DX3LAB, Director, Dance & Creative Wellness Foundation.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT WORKSHOP On the second day, Euro MP, Julie Ward, invited me, Nigel Farnworth, and the Creative Communities Group members, to attend a workshop in the European Parliament. Here Julie Ward spoke passionately about her beliefs and her background in European politics. She also introduced us to Roger Broadbent, director of the Dyslexia Institute UK, who said: “It was a pleasure to meet with Russell, Nigel, and the CCG members, and I thanked them for their support of the European Dyslexia Charter.” Ten percent (10%) of the population are dyslexic, and Roger Broadbent explained that dyslexia is identified as a disability as defined in the Equality Act 2010. Many dyslexic people across Europe are unable to fulfil their potential. A large percentage of the population still do not understand what dyslexia is, or the difficulties the condition presents, and do not know how best to support those with dyslexia; the European Dyslexia Charter will hopefully be a way to raise and address these issues throughout the UK and Europe. Roger Broadbent is hoping to develop a working relationship with the Creative Communities Group on future collaborative events.
A SERIES OF MEETINGS Throughout the rest of the week, the Creative Communities Group members attended a series of meetings in Brussels, including with Lucie Susova, Education and Lifelong Learning coordinator of the SOLIDAR Foundation, the ‘cooperation platform’ of SOLIDAR – a European network of NGOs (Civil Society Organisations) working to advance social justice in Europe and worldwide that works together in Social Affairs, International Cooperation, and Lifelong Learning. SOLIDAR has very kindly highlighted some of the work of the CCG in a publication entitled Tutorials on partnership between University and local community.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
