DoppelPlus, engaging low-income households in the fight against climate change

Publications Bank of innovations

DoppelPlus, engaging low-income households in the fight against climate change

DoppelPlus

Project that helps low-income households become ambassadors of the transition to clean energy and promotes changes in the daily behavior of households in relation to climate change, a group particularly vulnerable to its consequences.

The initiative consists of sending starter kits to low-income families to optimize their daily consumption. In this way, they save money and also contribute to the energy transition. The aim is to reduce energy costs while improving their financial situation and quality of life.

The project is implemented by means of personalized guidance, whereby families receive advice on how to protect the climate, as well as tailored measures such as training programs or teaching the basics of climate protection. The initiative offers multiplier measures for climate protection and increased energy efficiency in areas such as housing, heating, electricity, mobility, consumption and food.

DoppelPlus has also trained 1,000 families in the Tyrol (Austria) to become ambassadors of the clean energy transition, with annual savings of €200 per household. Long-term partnerships have also been forged with energy suppliers, cultural organizations, social housing companies and an extensive communication campaign to raise awareness of energy issues. The project creates a win-win situation for everyone: the environment and the household budget.

FIN(DA)WAY, an app for the reception and integration of refugees and asylum-seekers

Publications Bank of innovations

FIN(DA)WAY, an app for the reception and integration of refugees and asylum-seekers

Préfecture de Var

App aimed at guiding and facilitating the integration of refugees and asylum seekers, addressing their demands and needs and helping them to achieve a quick and autonomous adaptation in the host community.

FIN(DA)WAY provides access to information on the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, while helping them find resources related to training and employment. After co-creation and testing sessions with more than 60 people, the main contents and information included in the digital application are the following: help in finding places to stay or eat, information on transportation and documentation, facilities for learning French, the possibility of storing each person’s documentation within the application, and a contact book with their location. In addition, social professionals can also have access to communicate and interact with users.

The objective of FIN(DA)WAY is that refugees and asylum seekers can access the tool during the process of the first reception, in order to achieve autonomy from the first moment and speed up their integration into the country. In addition, it is an easy-to-use application, free of charge, with offline access and available in six languages (French, Pashto, English, Arabic, Russian and Spanish).

It is a service that offers immediate and personalized information and is subject to change, adapting to new demands, contents and services.

CRE-e, a multichannel guidance for employability

Publications Bank of innovations

CRE-e, a multichannel guidance for employability

Red Cross

Remote service to guide unemployed people in their job search, aimed at resolving doubts and accompanying them in the employability process through different channels and online activities.

Its objective is to provide job seekers with tools and information through a free telephone line, email, a Whatsapp channel and social networks (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter). With a call or message, the service’s professionals provide a personalized response in less than 72 hours to the questions and queries raised by users.

Its objective is to provide job seekers with tools and information through a free telephone line, email, a Whatsapp channel and social networks (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter). With a call or message, the service’s professionals provide a personalized response in less than 72 hours to the questions and queries raised by users.

In addition, the CRE-e multichannel has a content platform accessible to everyone free of charge. There are two main tools; the first is online conferences that aim to help people improve their employability. Each week they invite expert speakers to talk about various topics: employment and training resources, job search tools, labor market, and possible market niches. They also discuss specific initiatives aimed at young people, tips to give visibility to the curriculum for people over 50, and tools to work on digital skills, among others. Secondly, within the web platform there are all kinds of key resources so that people can resolve doubts autonomously. In addition, specific content on women’s issues (gender violence, labor rights, etc.) is included.

CRE-e complements the personalized itineraries that have been developed in Red Cross since 2014 for people at risk of social exclusion, a comprehensive response to people who present diverse situations and trajectories, in order to alleviate the situation of vulnerability they live in.

Harvi, hearing habilitation in noise environments through virtual reality  

Publications Bank of innovations

Harvi, hearing habilitation in noise environments through virtual reality  

Eunate (Associació de Famílies de Persones Sordes de Navarra)

A tool that improves the hearing of deaf people in noisy environments. It is a technological device that improves the daily life of these people and facilitates their auditory, linguistic, educational, occupational and socio-emotional development.

The initiative makes it possible to work on hearing in virtual environments with a 360° field of vision and surrounding sound. With this technological innovation, deaf people can enter everyday spaces such as a dining room, a shopping mall or a terrace, and hear the different background sounds in these places, facilitating their participation and interaction when they are in these environments.

The auditory discrimination tool is used with a speech therapist, who controls the volume of the different sounds to promote learning in the identification of “background noise”, and to develop strategies to improve listening and communication.

The project has been developed by EUNATE, an organization that works with deaf people and their families, with the aim of reducing the barriers to inclusion that this group has and promote a comprehensive and global improvement for them.

Youth and Family Office, community-based model for raising vulnerable children.

Publications Bank of innovations

Youth and Family Office, community-based model for raising vulnerable children.

Youth and Familiy Office

Community model of care for vulnerable children and teenagers in the Austrian municipality of Graz, which seeks to strengthen resources for families, and to identify and resolve their specific needs. It is designed so that the child or teenager and the family are at the center, with an approach that takes into account the domestic and social context in which they live.

The initiative has been developed in four districts of the city, and focuses mainly on avoiding the institutionalization of the most vulnerable children. The program’s approach is preventive, offering families who are expecting a child to receive information free of charge and to participate in a wide range of activities to prepare them for future parenting. Some of the activities offered are home visits by professionals, as well as free lectures and courses. Attendance at these courses provides a booklet with stamps that provide an economic incentive exchangeable for other services in the city, such as visits to parental counseling centers.

Once the children are born, parents receive counseling, and if special needs are identified, they can be transitioned to specialized services. The program is also aimed at older ages, including adolescence, with services such as nursery schools or youth centers, as well as leisure activities and digital support.

Graz’s model promotes flexible assistance tailored to the needs of each family, which is always involved in the research and identification of solutions.

Hoplr, a neighborhood social network to strengthen mutual support and inclusion

Publications Bank of innovations

Hoplr, a neighborhood social network to strengthen mutual support and inclusion

Hoplr

Social network aimed at creating social capital among neighbors in a neighborhood. It builds local communities that go hand in hand with current social changes to create fully inclusive and participatory cities.

The initiative aims to put community at the center of neighborhood life, as it considers mutual support to be one of the key elements of neighborhoods. It works free of charge for all types of mobile devices and access is based on each person’s address. To connect neighbors in the same area, neighborhoods are geographically delimited and only profiles from the same neighborhood have access to messages posted within it.

People using the application can meet other people living in the same neighborhood, ask for help to carry out different tasks, or help other neighbors with their needs. In addition, it is a good tool for organizing activities or events such as bike tours or game nights. Hoplr promotes care among the people who participate, whether it is companionship when a person is sick, shopping for elderly people who ask for it, or finding a person to take care of children for a few afternoons during the week.

As for public institutions, they cannot see the conversations between neighbors, but they have the possibility of publishing messages to inform about new developments, with which neighbors can interact and contribute ideas. In other words, it is a social network that promotes direct communication between neighborhood demands and the actions carried out by municipal authorities.

It is a social network free of commercial and advertising intervention, which works respecting the privacy of users, to create a safe environment for communication and citizen participation.

Vila Veïna, a new public community care system

Publications Bank of innovations

Vila Veïna, a new public community care system

Barcelona City Council

A new public care system in the city of Barcelona that aims to achieve a model of social and health care that is smaller and closer to the users.

To achieve this, it structures the service in a set of “Super Islands” of care, which encompass a group of houses and neighborhoods of between 10,000 and 30,000 inhabitants, with a reference point located in an open community space (for example, a library) to manage the needs of service users in an integrated manner. Thanks to this new innovative service model, professionals enjoy greater autonomy in the organization and management of their work, since they know the users more closely and are able to deal more directly and satisfactorily with all of them.

Each Vila Veïna has the essential services and benefits related to care in a centralized manner, in order to be able to deal with them closely. It also has emotional support groups and a resource bank for the care of children and the elderly, which provides material such as crutches, cradles, wheelchairs and other items necessary for the care of children and the elderly. It also offers legal and employment advice for caregivers and families in need, as well as talks and outdoor activities. The aim is to provide caregivers with access to information about existing services, as well as to create communities of care and proximity.

Each Vila Veïna has a professional who dedicates his or her working day to promoting networking, programming activities and attending to citizens in relation to care. The new profile of this professional is essential in innovation and requires a set of skills for community activation, as well as knowledge of municipal administrative systems and other administrations.

The project is aimed at the entire population living in the territory, because it is based on the idea that ‘we all take care of each other’, and the goal is to achieve a more caring community with all the people who are part of it.

In short, it is an innovative model that humanizes services and contemplates the participation of people, both caregivers and those receiving care, who are part of a community network and co-responsible for the collective welfare.

By 2022 there will be 12 Vila Veïna spaces in the city of Barcelona, and the goal is to have 115 throughout the city in the future.

Inclusively, a digital job search platform for people with disabilities

Publications Bank of innovations

Inclusively, a digital job search platform for people with disabilities

Inclusively

Inclusively, plataforma digital de cerca de feina per a persones amb discapacitat

Image from Inclusively.

Digital platform for the labor inclusion of people with disabilities, whether physical, intellectual, sensory or mental illness. It connects people with disabilities with companies committed to providing jobs adapted to their needs. In addition, it also has job counselors who work directly with candidates to improve their profile and accompany them in their job research.

The platform works in such a way that candidates can filter job offers according to the conditions they need, for example, physical accessibility, screen readers, flexible working hours, etc. The goal is that companies, no matter what size they are, offer the right jobs based on the skills, abilities and experience of each candidate.

On the other hand, in order to guarantee the right working conditions for the jobs, the platform offers training to companies so that they can adapt their work environments so that workers with disabilities can develop their full potential.

It is a platform that offers equal opportunities in job research to people with disabilities, as well as the opportunity for companies to find talent and experience among these group of people.

Inclusively

Emantik, a service for the detection and care of child and adolescent discomfort

Publications Bank of innovations

Emantik, a service for the detection and care of child and adolescent discomfort

Andoain Town Hall

Programme for the early detection and care of situations of vulnerability, discomfort or violence towards children and adolescents.

Emantik is based on an application (Kanjo) that systematically records the emotional state of the pupils of the three schools that have implemented the programme (Aita Larramendi Ikastola, La Salle-Berrozpe Ikastetxea and Ondarreta Ikastetxea) through a tablet and an algorithm that subsequently analyses the emotional patterns in order to detect cases of risk early on. The main function and objective of the programme is to help children and adolescents to learn emotional management, as well as to prevent cases of risk and vulnerability, or a possible situation of violence or suffering of the child or adolescent.

It is a system whereby three times a day (when arriving to school, after playground time and at the end of the school day) children and adolescents have to indicate in the tablet the emotion that best reflects their mood from among calm, contentment, anger, fear, disgust and sadness. In this way, boys and girls learn to identify their emotions, and on the other hand, the analysis of the data makes it possible to detect their emotional states as well as their evolution, in order to prevent situations of isolation, bullying, or other types of situations of discomfort or vulnerability.

The Kanjo system does not have access to the personal data of the boys and girls at any stage of the process, and only the schools have the capacity to link the anonymised IDs of the algorithm with the data of their pupils.

Emantik

REHAB-LAB, virtual community for the manufacture of technical aids with 3D printing

Publications Bank of innovations

REHAB-LAB, virtual community for the manufacture of technical aids with 3D printing

REHAB-LAB

Image from REHAB-LAB.

A virtual community for the manufacture of technical aids using 3D printing, which allows users to design and build their own aids in collaboration with technologists and socio-health professionals.

In this service, which is unique in France because of its integration within a rehabilitation centre, engineers are dedicated to innovation and the development of technological assistance for people with disabilities. The REHAB-LAB enables users to actively participate in the manufacture of their technical aids, thanks to 3D printing technology.

3D printing offers many advantages over conventional manufacturing techniques used to date in occupational therapy: adaptation, reproduction, aesthetics, weight, distribution, time, cost, accessibility, appropriation, mediation/occupation…

Accessibility is the main interest of 3D printing for users, who can be more involved in the rehabilitation process. Since the design of an object is digital, the possibility of creating one’s own technical aids is no longer due to the physical manipulation of materials but to the accessibility of the computer tool.

Rehab-Lab