Last year, a 180-page book titled – ‘Commitment, Collaboration & Continuity: Celebrating Cork as a Healthy City’ was launched to mark the first decade of the city’s involvement in the World Health Organisation’s Healthy Cities initiative. You can now get your hands on it for free.
The book showcases the projects partnered with or led by Cork Healthy Cities so that other cities and urban spaces across Ireland can learn from Cork’s experience and forge their own path. It records the highs and the lows and the learning along the way.
The book, heralded as the first of its kind published in Ireland or across Europe “highlights this intersectoral approach and showcases the key projects in Cork that have changed the dial to develop Cork as one of Ireland’s most liveable cities”.
An example of one such project is Green Spaces for Health, which started in 2018 coordinated by Maria Young, and has initiated and supports 25 (and counting) projects, especially community gardens. The project has resulted in a some life-changing health impacts for communities.
In terms of encouraging intersectoral policy action, the book welcomed the launch of Sláintecare’s Healthy Communities programme, as a “concerted focus on addressing health inequalities“ in communities in Ireland.
It is a book with a healthy (pardon the pun) mix of text, photos and graphs which makes it easy to move from reading one section to another.
The book was edited by Denise Cahill and Monica O’Mullane and went on sale last year for €20.
You can find out more about the book here: https://corkhealthycities.com and you are now welcome to download it for free from: https://bit.ly/CorkHealthyCity
