“I’m living healthy, too!” – SETS national movement, initiated by PRAIS Foundation is celebrating its fifth edition this year, being present in primary-cycle schools in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Otopeni, Ploiesti, Roman and Timişoara.
Based on EPODE methodologies, the SETS national movement has successfully engaged throughout the five years of implementation over 136.700 1st-4th grade pupils from 252 schools, 2.800 members of the teaching staff, 300.000 parents and more than 2 million persons from the general audience. Over 400 students from partner faculties of physical education and sports volunteered to hold 344 SETS open lessons in 88 schools in which 21.826 pupils participated.
15.611 pupils have voluntarily registered 383 SETS Movement and Fun Clubs, carrying out 6426 physical and sports activities. The pupils submitted creative names for the SETS clubs on www.sets.ro portal: „Alege sănătatea” (choose health), „Fluturaşii talentaţi” (talented butterflies), „Rilă şi prietenii” (Rila and his friends), „Merişarii pe bicicletă” (apples on a bike), „Strugurii vedetă” (star grapes), „Magnet de sănătate” (health magnet), „Albinuţele sportive” (sports bees), „Lefrutisport”.
In addition to the first-hand interventions conducted in schools, the national movement SETS also developed a public information portal dedicated to parents and children – www.sets.ro, as well as its own social media platform (comprising Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram pages and accounts of SETS) totalling more than 34.500 friends so far.
“Along with the PRAIS team we have been creating and developing for 14 years, national community-based projects, resonant social marketing campaigns to support the global causes we believe in. The education of the young generation towards a balanced lifestyle is a long-term target for us. We are successful due to the solid alliances we are based upon which include institutional and private partners, healthcare and sports originations, academic environment, as well as renowned experts in related fields, to whom we would like to thank! We have learned that only together we can change the lifestyle habits of the young generation in better”, declared Silvia Bucur, President of PRAIS Foundation.
According to the study conducted at the initiative of PRAIS Foundation on a sample of 677 parents of 1st graders in 30 schools in Bucharest, it has been found that only 38% of the children perform physical exercises each day. 68% of them eat 3 main meals daily, half of them have a habit in also eating between meals, while 2 of 5 children only eat during the main meals. They hydrate by drinking 4 glasses of beverages per day. Approximately half of the 1st grade children in Bucharest spend in average 2 hours per day in front of a screen during week-time, respectively 3 hours in weekend, and a third of them spend more than 4 hours per weekend day. The 1st grade children in Bucharest dedicate most of their time to sleeping, school activities and individual study, as appropriate to their age.
The PRAIS Foundation has participated in 2 crosscountry projects funded by the European Commission, programs aimed at evaluating SETS methodologies and interventions. During 2013-2015, the PRAIS Foundation has coordinated and implemented in Romania and 6 other countries for three years, the EPHE project – “EPODE for the Promotion of Equality in Health Status”. The methodologies and results of the implementation of the extracurricular SETS educational project were monitored on a representative sample of 180 families in the city of Otopeni. Simultaneously, the same research was done in six other similar communities in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Bulgaria, assessing the effectiveness of community-based interventions to reduce the health gap and prevent childhood obesity among disadvantaged populations .
The OPEN project – “Prevention of Obesity within the European Network” aims at strengthening community-based methodologies (CBPs), willing to implement sustainable strategies and actions to prevent obesity at local and national level. The program will increase the capacity of the 11 projects in the countries involved (including Romania) to develop, implement and evaluate interventions to prevent childhood obesity.