Date of the Event: September 22, 2022
Location of the Event: Athienou, Cyprus
Format: Online
Sponsoring Partner: Athienou Dimos
Number of Persons Attending: 104
On September 22nd, Athienou Dimos hosted the online start-up conference for the Project ‘Reflexions on Local Resilience and Reactions to COVID-19 impact on Youth’ (RE-ACT), which focused on the significant impact that the COVID-19 crisis is having on the mental health of European young people. The conference was open to local health authorities and youth from all participating project partners. Approximately 104 people were in attendance.
After the welcome speech by the Mayor’s of Athienou, Mr. Kyriacos Kareklas, a representative of Athienou Dimos shared the results of a rapid assessment conducted by the project partners that amplified the voices of hundreds of youngsters between the ages of 13 and 30 in their regions. The results provided a worrying account of the feelings (i.e., anxiety, depression, etc.) they faced in the first months of the response to the pandemic and the situation up to today. The COVID-19 crisis has affected the daily life of young people as many reported having less motivation to do activities they usually enjoyed. Their perception of the future has also been negatively affected and many feel pessimistic.
A situation that generated deep concern – and is a call to local health authorities – is that many have felt the need to ask for help concerning their physical and mental well-being. Despite this, most did not ask for such help, were unaware of where to go for assistance or did not feel duly supported. At the conference, participants also discussed the results of a survey conducted among local health authorities outlining training needs to be able to improve their response vis-à-vis adolescents and young people in view that infectious disease outbreaks are most likely to occur.
Following a structured process of information exchange, participants in the session reached consensus on how to move forward with Work Package 2 of the RE-ACT project and discussed related logistics for its implementation.
