The Green4C (GreenForCare) project, co-funded by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, is a three-year project innovating and promoting nature-based solutions for health, well-being, and social inclusion. While the public sector is also involved in the process and outcomes of the project, the purpose of Green4C is to contribute to the development of Green Care (GC) entrepreneurial opportunities for students, researchers, professionals, as well as practitioners. Green care refers to activities in contact with nature which promote physical and mental wellbeing and health, as well as social inclusion.
Specifically, Green4C aims at improving interdisciplinary skills and encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship attitudes among university undergraduate and graduate students, research staff and professors across the fields of Agriculture, Forestry, Urban Planning and Environmental Management as well as Medicine, Psychology and Social Work, and more broadly business owners and practitioners from these different fields.The most innovative aspect of Green4C stems from the integration of two business and scientific sectors that are currently disconnected: the health and social inclusion sectors (e.g., public and private hospitals, health centres, care houses and social centres for disadvantaged people) and the natural resource use related sectors (e.g., forestry, agriculture, tourism etc.) in both rural and urban areas (e.g., including forest owners, farmers, cooperatives, environmental and social associations and public-private tourism consortia). In order to do this, Green4C focuses on four Thematic Sectors, including: Forest-based care; Urban green care; Social agriculture; and Green care tourism.
Green4C is promoted by the University of Padua and Etifor in partnership with Elevate Health, the Universitatea Transilvania din Brașov, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Meath Partnership, Bundesforschungszentrum für Wald, the European Forest Institute, Wageningen University and Research, Forest Design, The University of British Columbia, The University College Dublin. Find out more about our partners here.