News

As it was planned the first day of the MindWellness Final Conference was developed at the University of Pécs coinciding with the project fourth and last trans-national meeting.

The local television and radio covered the event. The local radio interviewed the project promoter UGT-Euskadi at the beginning of the Conference.

Hungarian partners, TREBAG Ltd and the University of Pécs were invited to attend the local television program “Pécsi Regionális Magazin” in where they were interviewed and had the change to explain the philosophy and results of this European project.

This interview is available on the following link (Hungarian webpage): http://videotar.mtv.hu/Videok/2010/10/15/18/Pecsi_Regionalis_Magazin_2010_oktober_15_.aspx

MindWellness Demo CD has been developed by the Hungarian partner TREBAG Ltd. The Demo CD contains the information on the project, the project products and the developed training materials translated to every partner’s language.

The CD project will support more effectively the dissemination of the project and will be distributed among national and European stakeholders.

Coinciding with the last Trans-national partner meeting in Pécs (Hungary), the University of Pécs is finalizing the details for the International Conference of Mindwellness project.

The conference will be developed during the afternoon of 14th October and the morning of 15th October. The program of the first day will be developed at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Pécs. The second day the conference will take place at the Hotel Makár Tanya in Pécs.

Experts in the field of brain training for elderly people will participate in this conference. MindWellness partners will have the chance to present to the attendees the main project results.

With this event the project faces its last implementation stage.

Mindwellness project enters in its final work stage. In this context, the last Trans-National meeting will be developed in Pécs (Hungary) this month.

The following dates 14th and 15th October, MindWellness partners will meet once again and will face together the final stage of the project.

Mindwellness project began in December of 2008 and ends on November 2010. As a result of the joint work and cooperation among all the partners, the development of the following products has been possible:

• National Reports on the state of the elderly citizens and gerontology in every participating country in English.
• Collection of best practices and exercises in English
• Handbook on brain training for older people in English, Spanish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Danish, Polish and Estonian languages.
• Final training tool developed at: http://www.netcall36.hu/mindwell/ in English, Spanish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Danish, Polish and Estonian languages.
• CD demo which contains mainly the handbooks in all languages and the training tool developed.

The piloting of the training tool was developed in Denmark, Hungary, United Kingdom and Spain. 72 people (representatives of the target groups, 53% women and 47% men) took part in the piloting. The average age of the women was 61 years and in the case of men, 63 years. The participants tested the main contents of the training tool: the modules, the cognitive test and the online games.

In each country the methodology followed for the development of the piloting has been different. In Spain, two groups were formed and after a general presentation of the training tool, participants tested and played from their houses. In other countries, the methodology followed has been the opposite: face to face sessions. During all the process, participants were supported by MindWellness piloting partners.

After the testing, participants provided their feedback in a questionnaire fulfilled via email or via telephone.

The results of this piloting have been very positive. For example, 91% of the people agreed that the training and its contents provided effective exercises to improve the mental abilities of people 50+.

The third Trans-national Meeting of MindWellness project was held in Graz, Austria, from 7th April until 9th April 2010.

This third meeting matched up with the mobility actions celebrated the days 8th and 9th April in Graz. 31 participants took part in these mobility actions and had the chance to test and evaluate the pilot training tool developed in the frame of this project. The aim of these mobility actions was that experts and elderly people from each participating country took part and provided their feedback personally, discuss the training materials developed and exchanged their experiences.

The third meeting was focused on the presentation of the current results and on the next steps to be developed in the project, mainly, the piloting of the training tool and the evaluation of the draft version of the Handbook on Brain Training for Older People.

The next and final Trans-national Meeting will be developed next October in Pécs (Hungary) and will be organized by the University of Pécs.

MindWellness will visit the 2009 Interskola Conference in Stawiska Kościerzyna District, Poland. It will be held on 26th of July and 2nd of August.

The presentation prepared for the Conference is titled “Examples of the Lifelong Learning and Further Education”.

The Interskola Annual Conference focuses in Education in Remote & Rural Communities. Interskola Network seeks, by stimulating the international discussion, to explore and promote various aspects of the remote education, among them lifelong learning across various communities and the establishment of an on-going international networks to support this kind of education and learning.

The second Trans-national Meeting of MindWellness project was held in Tallinn (Estonia) from 9th July until 10th July 2009.

The main objectives of the meeting were to present the Report on the Investigation of the state of elderly citizens and learning in higher age on national level, and the Report on the Collection of Best Practices and Exercises on Mindwellness. During this meeting the next three steps of the project were discussed among the partners also: the Guidelines and content of the Teaching Material, the Guidelines for the Mobility Actions planned for next April and also the Guidelines for the elaboration of the Handbook.

Next Trans-national Meeting and also the Mobility Actions of the project will be hosted by Volkshilfe Steiermark in Graz (Austria) next April 2010.

MindWellness will visit the EDEN Annual Conference that will take place in Gdansk (Poland) in June, from 10th to 13th. The EDEN “European Distance and E-Learning Network” works for sharing knowledge and improving understanding for professionals in distance and e-learning across whole Europe and beyond, and to promoting policy and practice for this field.

“Innovation and Creativity” will be the main theme in 2009 Annual Conference, where the MindWellness project will be promoted through the Website and leaflets in various languages.

The first Trans-national Meeting of MindWellness project was held in Bilbao (Spain) in February, from 19th to 20th 2009.

The main objectives of the meeting were discussing the approaching to be given to the project and presenting a discuss guideline for the development of the investigation of the state of elderly citizens and learning in higher age on national level. Also the guidelines for the collection of Best Practices and Exercises on MindWellness were presented.

Next Trans-national Meeting will be hosted by Tallin Health Care College in Tallin (Estonia) next July 2009.