Brain orienteering in Finland

Background

Name of your initiative:

Short name (acronym):

Brain orienteering

Website title and address:

http://www.jamsanmuistiyhdistys.fi/

Which organization is submitting this initiative?:

Jämsän Muistiyhdistys ry

Please specify in which regions/provinces:

SUOMI / FINLAND

City:

Jämsä

Where is this organization located?:

Finland

Please enter the name of the contact person for this initiative:

Maarit Salonen

Please enter the email of the contact for this initiative:

info@jamsanmuistiyhdistys.fi

Part of larger strategy or programme:

National

If you answered "other", please specify:

Please provide us with more details of this programme or strategy:

Finland`s National Memory Program started in 2012. One of the focus areas of this program is brain health. As a part of this program we are running a four years development project (2012-2015) focusing on brain health in young and working age population.

The status of the initiative:

On-going

Please give a summary of your initiative (in English):

We have been developing a new type of brain health related preventive activity. We call it the Brain orienteering. Design principles of this activity are: it is for all ages/from children to granmothers; it is inexpensive/small budget activity; it has focus on brain stimulating/it improves and activates; it makes you stop and think about brain health. We wanted to get out of meeting rooms and classrooms and focus on activities that happen in nature – so in the woods we went! Orienteering is sports requiring navigational skills using a map to navigate from to point in unfamiliar terrain. We decided to built on that metaphor and design a Brain orienteering track with ten control points. For these control points we designed question patterns covering such topics as how brain work, learning and memory, sleep, coping at work & school. We think we were able to put together an informative, fun and relaxing opportunity to stop, learn and think issues related to brain health. You can change the level of difficulty of the questions according to the group. If the group includes with reduced mobility you design the track accordingly. The Brain orienteering has been successful. We have tested brain orienteering in schools and summer camps. Last summer we arranged a brain orienteerin track as a part of a major international orienteering competition Jukola 2013 where was 16,000 people. Our presentation brings pictures and memories of the experiences and lessons we learned at unforgettable event.

The geographical scope:

Regional

Type of initiative:

Public-private-partnership

Environment or setting of the initiative:

The economic environment or setting of the initiative:

Rich

The most important source of funding for your initiative:

Other

If other, please specify your source of funding:

What triggered this initiative?:

We wanted to get out of meeting rooms and classrooms and focus on activities that happen in nature – so in the woods we went! Orienteering is sports requiring navigational skills using a map to navigate from to point in unfamiliar terrain. We decided to built on that metaphor and design a Brain orienteering track with ten control points.

Objectives

What are the main objectives of your initiative? Choose a maximum of 3 objectives.:

Social participation: increase the number of older people who are socially activeCivic participation: increase in possibilities for active civic participation of older people

Please describe any subgoals of your initiative:

We think we were able to put together an informative, fun and relaxing opportunity to stop, learn and think issues related to brain health.

Target group

Does your initiative target people with a specific impairment or disease?:

How many people have you reached or do you expect to reach with your initiative?:

10.000 - 100.000

Does your initiative target a specific age group?:

< 1818 - 4950 - 6465 - 7980+

Does your initiative target men or women?:

Irrelevant

Approach

Please indicate what best describes your initiative:

Other

What type of intervention strategy is used in your initiative?:

User-empowerment and participation

Please indicate the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of your initiative:

Not applicable

Who executes the initiative:

Non-governmental organisation

What is the relevant physical scale of your initiative?:

City/municipality

Please indicate how you think your initiative could be scaled up (made to reach more people):

It is guite easy to cooperate with different kind of stakeholders

Please indicate the type of stakeholders concerned with your initiative.:

Non-governmental organisationOther

Please describe how you think your initiative could be transferred to other regions or contexts:

With these question patterns covering such topics as how brain work, learning and memory, sleep, coping at work & school. We think we were able to put together an informative, fun and relaxing opportunity to stop, learn and think issues related to brain. health.

Is your initiative economically sustainable and does it contribute to economic development?:

If you selected "other" neighbourhood, please specify::

Impact & outcome

Will you collect or have you collected outcome data for this initiative?:

What do you consider the key success factors of your initiative? If your initiative has not yet started, please indicate what you expect the key success factors to be:

What do you consider the main barriers to overcome in your initiative? If your initiative has not yet started, please indicate what you expect the main barriers to be.:

What instruments will you use/have used to collect data?:

If you selected "other" instrument to collect data, please specify:

If yes, how will you/have you collected those data?:

Will you collect or have collected socio-economic impact data for this initiative?:

Will or are the collected data in the initiative publicly available?: