50 million steps and more than 36 thousand kilometers covered, all in favor of health and the fight against isolation. The “Volta ao Monte” project, by the Odiana Association, has been going on for a year and the impact on the lives of the elderly in the municipality of Castro Marim will begin to be measured.
This is a project that aims to “mitigate the physical, mental inactivity and social isolation of the elderly”, explains Odiana.
The average age of hikers is 74 years.
«Reviewed in numbers, the impact of this project becomes quite illustrative: an average of 2,5 km/day per beneficiary, three locations, nine different routes, 12 months of walking, 41 senior beneficiaries. In addition, thirty-six thousand five hundred km's and fifty million steps covered by the total number of elderly people are added», says the association.
The first year of the anniversary is also a time to reassess the general health status and quality of life of the beneficiaries. In this sense, on the 28th, 29th and 30th of June, tests were carried out by the University of Algarve to measure body composition, assess muscle strength and cognitive and mental status.
This reassessment aims to carry out a first analysis of the impact of the walks on the welfare of the beneficiaries, and the results will be published at the end of the project.
The “Volta ao Monte”, which recently won 2nd place in the “2022 Algarve Active Ageing Good Practices Award”, promotes, until the end of this year, regular walks in the mountainous interior of the Castro Marim municipality, in the villages of Alta Mora, Furnazinhas and Azinhal.
The project promoted by Associação Odiana, has the strategic partnership of the Municipality of Castro Marim, as a social investor, being co-financed under the Partnership Program for the Impact of Portugal Inovação Social, under the Community funds of CRESC Algarve 2020.
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