Support communities by providing them with concrete, practical help
Although our aim is a healthy lifestyle for all children in Belgium, each child and the community they grow up in, is unique. They have their own culture and their own specific opportunities and needs. How do we stimulate a healthy diet and promote physical activity in a way that fits each community like a glove?
VIASANO doesn’t communicate to children and their parents directly. Instead we use the aid of local actors (the community) involved in children’s daily lives (the municipal services, school, associations, doctors, companies and retailers) to promote a healthy diet and physical activity. We support them through knowledge-sharing, training, tools (intranet, website and tools for the press) and methodological support.
VIASANO helps communities define their objectives in terms of a healthy lifestyle. Once the goal is clear, we define an action plan which we support through our training, tools, knowledge and network.
Our actions are based on local needs. The community of Herstal is a good example. The local team wanted to promote drinking water at school and they applied the Viasano campaign: education of the school staff, parents and children, the launch of a contest to design a gourd and a communication campaign on the topic of drinking water. Each year VIASANO meets up with the local team to evaluate the action plan and the team’s achievements.
We are proud of the commitment of the municipalities that we work with in the Viasano programme.The Viasano programme has been created over 10 years ago and some towns have already renewed their contract 3 times. Even when elected officials-policymakers had changed after elections.
Communities appreciate our campaigns and training, because it provides them with concrete, practical help. We created many campaigns that integrate guidelines, communication and educational tools that facilitate health promotion on a local level. Our workshops are moments of exchange, meetings between experts and practical experiences (such as a cooking workshop), which enable our project managers to be effective ambassadors and to enter into a "train the trainers" logic.
