Partners

and the age-friendly cities they represent

T.R. Çanakkale Governorship & Çanakkale

T.R. Çanakkale Governorship

Project coordinator

Within the borders of the province, the Governor, who is the representative and administrative executive instrument of our President, is in charge of fully implementing the decisions taken by our President, the Turkish Grand National Assembly and the Ministries. It is also the Governor’s duty to protect public order&safety by maintaining personal immunity, peace and security and by regulating the general administration and its course. The Governor is acountable to the President for provincial administration. At the same time, due to His duty, He acts as a bridge between citizens and the State.
Canakkale Governorship’ EU and Foreign Relations Office has been actively running both local and international project since its creation. Up to now, the governorship has coordinated 2016-1-TR01-KA204-034336, which was another EU project aiming to help the migrants in our country. Also, Gökçeada (Imroz) has earned the EDEN (European Destination of Excellence) Finalist in 2015. The staff in Canakkale Governorship attended the Turkish Sign Language course, which was another successful initiative of the EU Office in 2018.

Show more

About Canakkale

Çanakkale (Dardanelles) is an important town and seaport of Turkiye and is a significant center of tourism. After Istanbul, Canakkale is the second city that has territories on both continents of Asia (Biga Peninsula) and Europe (Gelibolu Peninsula). It lies on the southern coast of Dardanelles Strait (or Hellespont) that connects the Aegean and Marmara Seas.
The two most important places of history can be explored in Canakkale: Troy and Gallipoli. Originally, Canakkale was an Ottoman fortress named Kale-i-Sultanie. Later, it excelled in pottery and thus earned the current name Canakkale – “canak” meaning pot and “kale” meaning fortress.

The history of Çanakkale dates back to a period, as early as 5,000 years. It is believed that the earliest inhabitants settled in the Kumkale area and the Troy was set up between 3500–3000 B.C. The mythological war of Troy, which was immortalized by Homer in his Iliad, also believed to have happened by then. The Aeolians settled in the region in the 8th century B.C. and they were followed by the Lydians in the 7th century B.C. and the Persians in the 6th century B.C. When Alexander the Great defeated the Persians, the Macedonians got in charge of the region but later in the 2nd century B.C., Pergamon Kingdom conquered Aeolis. In the 2nd century A.D., Goths from Thrace attacked Troy because it was an important port. The Byzantine name for Çanakkale was “Dardanellia” which turned into “Dardanelles” in English. In the 14th century, the Ottomans started to control Gallipoli. During the First World War, the battle of Canakkale (Gallipoli War, 1915) took place when the Turkish soldiers tried to drive out the Allied Forces from the region. Turkish forces under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk battled successfully and that’s how Canakkale earned its name as “Canakkale: un-passable”. Unfortunately, 500,000 soldiers died to achieve this success and, in their memory, this peninsula has been made a national park of remembrance.

Show more

E-Seniors & Paris

E-Seniors

E-Seniors is a non-profit non-governmental organization, founded in 2005 by Monique Epstein, the general manager of the association. E-Seniors aims at fighting e-exclusion by offering ICT training to seniors (people aged 55 and over). Its main objectives are:

  • to bridge the digital gap between generations,
  • to foster seniors’ social participation,
  • to propose activities encouraging seniors to spend actively their free time.

Since its creation, E-Seniors provides ICT courses for seniors in various public places and constantly opens new courses all over the Parisian region, in order to provide proximity services taking into account the rhythm, the interests and the needs of its audience. Through its actions for and with elderly people, E-Seniors also raises awareness about the importance of ICT solutions in everyday life. The association also proposes interactive gaming activities in elderly residences, retirement homes and day-care centres. E-Seniors is aware of the challenges that both healthy and dependant seniors face up to and is involved in the development of new products and services aiming to boost independent living and to maintain physical and mental health.

 

ESE is involved in many European projects funded by the Erasmus+, Horizon2020 and the EIT Health programmes. The mission of ESE in these projects is to promote innovation in healthy living and active ageing, as well as lifelong learning.

Show more

About Paris

For centuries Paris has been one of the world’s most important and attractive cities. It is appreciated for the opportunities it offers for business and commerce, for study, for culture, and for entertainment; its gastronomy, haute couture, painting, literature, and intellectual community especially enjoy an enviable reputation. Its sobriquet “the City of Light” (“la Ville Lumière”), earned during the Enlightenment, remains appropriate, for Paris has retained its importance as a centre for education and intellectual pursuits.

Paris is the capital city of France, and the largest city in France. The area is 105 square kilometres and around 2.15 million people live there. If suburbs are counted, the population of the Paris area rises to 12 million people. The city has a multi-cultural style because 20% of the people there are from outside France
The Seine river runs through the oldest part of Paris and divides it into two parts, known as the Left Bank and the Right Bank. It is surrounded by many forests.

Paris is also monumental, both due to its size but also its wealth of architectural heritage! The symbol of the capital city, and doubtless its best-known monument, is the unique Eiffel Tower, the “Iron Lady” that offers visitors an unsurpassed view. Close by is the equally iconic Arc de Triomphe. This historical landmark dazzles onlookers on summer days when the sun sets through the huge arch. Notre Dame Cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, is another magnificent and unmissable sight, where you can admire sculptures, the nave, towers and even the crypt!
Just as evocative, the Sacré-Cœur Basilica has been the source of inspiration for writers and filmmakers. It houses the largest mosaic in France and boasts an incredible panoramic view over the city from the top of the Montmartre district! Paris is also a city of iconic squares, including the Place de la Concorde with its two fountains, rostral columns and the incredible Luxor Obelisk, the Place de la Bastille, with its famous July Column commemorating the revolution and its very modern Paris National Opera and the Place de l’Opéra, featuring the magnificent Opéra Garnier.

Show more

Magenta & Gijón

Magenta

Magenta Consultancy is an educational and European projects’ consultancy with 18 years of expertise in the promotion of gender equality and social development and the regional, national and European level. Our purpose is to promote the re-build of an equal and fair society, in which everybody has the same opportunities and vulnerable groups are integrated. Magenta wants to achieve this through educational programs, mainly focused on the areas of gender equality and violence prevention, social integration, psychological and physical health, help to access the labor market and entrepreneurship promotion, literacy –with empowerment and key competencies –, active aging and youth.

As can be seen, its target group is represented by all generations, with whom it works not only directly, but also with other professionals. Together, they want to achieve socio-economic human rights for those groups in vulnerable situations that have difficulties obtaining them or do not have them guaranteed. With this purpose, Magenta works annually with approximately 500 learners/users and collaborates with 50 NGOs and 56 City Councils from Asturias, its region in the north of Spain. At an international level, it hosts around 300 European learning mobilities thanks to the cooperation with its network of partner organizations around Europe, which is integrated by more than 200 institutions.

Regarding Magenta’s own team, they are a close group of professionals with not-so-similar careers. It has from philologists to social workers or pedagogues, among others, and this fulfilling variety is one of Magenta’s main values, as it allows them to complement each other. Cooperation and collaboration are what lead them to succeed in their goals.

Show more

About Gijón

Gijón is one of the three main cities in Asturias, a region in the north of Spain. Situated by the sea, is probably one of the oldest too. It was founded in the Roman period, and reminiscences of these times can still be found in the historic center of Cimadevilla, like the roman baths’ ruins under the church of Saint Peter. But its origins as a settlement are even older, as we can find the remains of an old Celtic settlement in La Campa Torres. This antiquity supports the growth and importance that the city has reached, especially throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, when it started to become one of the main centers of industry in the north of Spain. This importance is also explained by its port, which is still one of the most important in the north of Spain.

Even now, when the industry is decreasing, and the old military headquarters of Santa Catalina’s hill has long ago become a park, Gijón has managed to maintain its importance, being the most populated city in Asturias, ahead of the capital, Oviedo. This is mainly due to the new focus towards becoming a touristic, I+D+i and university center, which has held its economical strength. It has a wide network of museums, the cultural complex of the Labor University, a university campus, and a science-technology park, among other important sports facilities.

But Gijón does not only have a history in its ground and historic buildings. Being one of the most populated areas of Asturias, one of the regions with the most aging population in Spain, the city has quite a huge elderly population (a 26’4% of the total). Besides this being due to the natural aging of its population, geography also explains this situation, as Gijón is built-in the plain ground, something that is not very common in Asturias due to its orography. This makes the city quite accessible, as it has also very modern facilities as nursing homes, hospitals, and other public facilities and services as well.

Show more

Parasol Foundation & POZNAŃ

Parasol Foundation

Parasol Foundation is an educational institution that works and operates mainly for seniors but also for unemployed, youth, people at risk of social exclusion. Parasol Foundation’s main aim is to provide seniors/unemployed/youth with a variety of educational challenges and opportunities, to find possibilities of personal development for seniors. Our main activity is language teaching, we run language courses (English, German) for different groups of learners. Parasol organizes many activities for seniors from language and ICT courses to book reading workshops, film festivals, walking tours, discussion meetings in order to involve as many seniors as possible and help them in being active. Parasol Foundation cooperates with local authorities in the area of seniors’ development and growth. We try to focus on innovative approaches to lifelong learning, we have applied many courses based on blended learning and e-learning. We try to make learners more active, to stimulate creativity amongst our adult learners in order to work out new learning methods. We cooperate with freelance teachers and several external experts. Parasol organizes certified training for adults, seniors to become city guides.
Show more

About POZNAŃ

The fifth-largest city in Poland (533,830 inhabitants in June 2020) Poznań together with the Poznań poviat and the communes constitute the Poznań agglomeration, inhabited by over 1.2 million people.
The city is an important road and rail junction, and the Poznań-Ławica international airport also operates here. Poznań is a center of industry, trade, logistics, and tourism. The Poznań International Fair operates here – the largest and oldest exhibition center in Poland. Poznań is an academic, scientific, and cultural center. Over 110 thousand students study at 25 universities. people. There are, among others, opera, philharmonic, ballet, theaters, cinemas, museums, art galleries, orchestras, and folk groups.
Poznań was one of the capital and religious centers of the Piast state in the 10th and 11th centuries, in the past it served as the seat of Polish rulers and was also one of the most developed fortresses in Poland at that time. Poznań was also the capital of Poland in the years 1290–1296. It is one of the oldest established cities in Poland – it was granted city rights in 1253. In the cathedral in Poznań, there is a symbolic tomb of the first Polish rulers – Mieszko I and Bolesław I the Brave. The Ostrów Tumski island is the seat of the curia of the Poznań Archdiocese – the oldest in Poland, and also the second oldest university in Poland. The capital of Greater Poland was one of the royal cities of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.
Poznań cultural climate is formed by the wide range of entertainment on offer. Major international events hosted here include Malta Festival – the biggest theatre festival in Poland, Dancing Poznań – which has been attracting dancers from all over the world for 17 years.
The program is complemented by small but quickly growing events – the Animator Festival – the biggest festival of animated films in Poland, the Ethno Port Festival – recognized as one of the best 25 world music festivals in the world.
Show more

University of Porto & Porto

University of Porto

University of Porto (UPORTO, www.up.pt) is Portugal’s second largest university and one of the most prestigious teaching and research institutions in the country. Competences Centre on Active and Healthy Ageing of UPorto, Porto4Ageing, is a four-starred Reference Site and Partner Plus of the European Innovation Partnership and Healthy Ageing of the European Commission, bringing together over 90 organisations, the large majority of them established within the Porto Metropolitan Area, in the Northern Region of Portugal.

The partnership is built upon the quadruple helix approach – it involves different stakeholders (regional governments and health and care providers, academia and research, industry and civil society), which are in good position to drive structural changes far beyond the scope any organization could achieve on its own, aiming to innovate and experiment in real world settings. Despite the different backgrounds, goals and actions, Porto4Ageing revolves around a shared vision and common targets, where each organisation actively contributes in a specific way to the overall goal of responding to the citizens’ needs, specifically in matters related to active and health ageing in the Porto Region.

The Porto4Ageing alliance is committed to promoting local convergence and improving the health innovation ecosystem, while reducing and overcoming existing bottlenecks. It is doing so by promoting joint work for high impact, thus bridging the gap between public and private actions and instruments and, ultimately, facilitating knowledge exchanges and scaling up of results (www.porto4ageing.up.pt).The Porto4Ageing consortium stems from the UPORTO Ageing Network, established in 2013, as UPORTO considered that it could play a vital role in the improvement of health and AID4Ageing 9 This proposal version was submitted by Sophie Monteau on 04/06/2020 14:39:24 Brussels Local Time. Issued by the Funding & Tenders Portal Submission System.quality of life of European citizens, and particularly relating to elderly population, by contributing through research and development in this particular field. In this context, the top management of UPORTO had decided that a network composed of experts in the field of ageing should be created within the university, to bring together, not only different stakeholders to join up forces and expertise, but also different visions and contributions (health and social services, social, cultural, behavioural determinants, etc.).

University of Porto has around 1600 non-teaching staff, over 31.000 students (around 1500 from foreign countries) and 2300 full-time academic staff, two thirds of which are post-graduates. This high qualification level of the teaching staff, combined with advanced lab technology and equipment, as well as the close connections with the business world ensure first-class training, which is fully recognized by the labour market. As the biggest producer of science in Portugal, UPORTO provides an exceptional variety of courses (over 600 training programmes per year, degree awarding and non-degree awarding) covering the whole range of study areas and all levels of higher education, from degrees to lifelong education courses. Currently, UPORTO hosts almost 49 research centres (9 of them are state associated labs) covering a wide range of areas, from the humanities to sciences and technologies, and six competence centres in the fields of cybersecurity, ageing, biomechanics, media, ocean and materials research.

Evaluated by international panels of independent experts in assessments by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, more than a half of these research units have been awarded as “Excellent” and “Very Good”. Many of these centres are used as interfaces for institutions, bringing the University together, as a main partner, along with other organisations representing external interests. Assuming itself as a Research University, UPORTO is responsible for almost 25% of the Portuguese scientific papers indexed in the ISI – Web of Science (ISI-WoS). In the last years, UPORTO has been putting large efforts in providing greater economic value to its scientific production and partnerships with industry leaders have already resulted in several innovations with proven success in the national and international sphere. University of Porto Science and Technology Park (UPTEC) has been playing a very important role in this matter.

Show more

About Porto

Porto is located in the North of Portugal, on the north bank of the river Douro. It’s the second-largest city in the country, in an urban area with more than 1.3 million inhabitants. Four main bridges (Arrábida, Freixo, Luiz I and Infante) and two railway bridges (S. João and D. Maria – this one, considered a historical monument, is no longer operational) make it possible to cross the river to the other bank (Vila Nova de Gaia). Porto is a city characterised by its granite, which makes it a city “with character”. Its climate is temperate, though quite damp. Porto is settled since pre-historical times. It has since been inhabited by Romans, Iberians, Celts, Swabians, Visigoths and Moors (although the influence of the Moors is greater in the South). In national history, Porto has always fought for its independence and love for freedom. Liberalism, liberty and patriotism are some of the values that have always been expensive to the inhabitants of Porto. The name “tripeiros”, for which the inhabitants of Porto are known, THE CITY arises from one of those proves of patriotism: in the 15th Century, the inhabitants of Porto gave away all their meat to supply the fleet that set sail from Porto, keeping only the tripes for themselves. This is the origin of one of the most traditional dishes of the local cuisine, “tripas à moda do Porto”. With a strong and dynamic bourgeoisie to which the city owes the epitaph of “City of Work”, Porto has always been the city of trade. Its main export product is the Port wine, which enabled the renovation of the city: new roads and buildings were built, which accounts for the richness of the bourgeoisie of the time. The historical richness of the city is accounted for in the labyrinth of narrow and rough streets of the medieval times and in its monuments (the Cathedral, the “Palácio da Bolsa”, as well as several churches, museums and private houses). In 1996 UNESCO considered Porto “World Heritage”. This decision was largely influenced by the undeniable historical and architectural richness, by the beauty of the city and by the urban and social renovation the city goes constantly through, especially in the oldest areas. This demonstrates the cultural and social vitality of the city, which is also proven by its several Universities, art academies, conservatories, museums and art galleries. This enabled Porto to be considered in 2001 the European Capital of Culture, together with Rotterdam. As such, great projects have been implemented aiming at encouraging cultural dynamics and continuing the urban renovation Porto has been going through. For all these reasons, Porto gained its place as a city of work, science, culture and leisure.
Show more

Lidi Smart Solutions & The Hague

Lidi Smart Solutions

Lidi Smart Solutions was founded to promote the latest trends in the digital era, offering web-education for adults and youth in a number of fields. Among our core activities were developing and implementing online education platforms and e-learning tools. From there, we grew to tackle the leading-edge technologies, striving to demystify them and increase their accessibility to various social and professional groups. Hence empowering larger communities with the opportunity to take on the demanding challenges of the 21st century. Our recent ventures include exploring the various uses for disruptive blockchain and AI technologies as well as a content synthesis for MOOCs, contributing to EU-funded projects.
Another focus of our interests is social innovations backed by EU strategic partnerships. We are driven by our care for social causes and issues in a number of social strata. Our aim is to advance the instruments of the relevant stakeholders ultimately seeking a friendlier and fairer society. It is a privilege for us to participate in projects targeting social inclusion of the elderly citizens, their active aging and independent living as well as the wellbeing of youth with fewer opportunities.
The company is based in The Netherlands.
Show more

About The Hague

The city of The Hague combines the beauty and elegance of the North with the traditional Dutch open-mindedness and tolerance. ‘The world is at home in The Hague’ says Van Aartsen, a former city mayor. Indeed, the international city of peace and justice is home to nearly 200 nationalities, making it colorful and vibrant. International organizations, embassies, and the headquarters of many multinational corporations are located in The Hague. The city is the heart of the political power in The Netherlands as the house of parliament, the government, and the Royal family are situated there as well.
The city of The Hague is more than 750 years old, with signs of the first inhabitants living on these grounds dating around 6000 years ago. Artifacts from the Roman Empire, Eighty Years’ War, The Second World War, and other important epochs of human history can be found there. Remains from the different periods of poverty and prosperity throughout the centuries are kept carefully. The treasures of the past and the old architecture, the local city secrets, cathedrals, and museums attract thousands of tourists every year.
Another attraction for the local citizens and the tourists is the festivals and the rich cultural life. People from all over the world come to experience the fireworks, campfire, dance and food festivals, jazz and royal nights, pop and rock concerts, and many other live events. A distinctive feature of the local people is their love for street fairs and performances. There are many galleries that present the masterpieces of old and new artists.
With a population of around 704,000 spread over an area of 98.12 km2, the citizens of The Hague enjoy spacious neighborhoods and plenty of beautiful green parks. The city is proud of its bicycle infrastructure, which supports the so-called ‘Dutch way of living’. Breathtaking dunes, endless white sandy beaches, and the magnificent sea view only add to the glamor of The Hague. Trendy bars and charming restaurants alongside the beach boulevard and the harbor enhance the city’s vibe and spirit and guarantee unforgettable moments for its citizens and guests.

Show more

GRANT AGREEMENT 2020-1-TR01-KA204-092414