Design and Develop

Description of the project and the local area

Cadzand is a small village on the coast of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, one of the main former islands of the province Zeeland in the Netherlands.  Coastal communities in the 2 Seas area, such as Cadzand, are facing particular common social, demographic and economic challenges related to a specific mix of ageing people, i.e. locals, newcomers, temporary visitors of an increasing average age. As this population puts pressure on health and social care systems, it is important to enable elderly to stay active and independent for longer, to improve their wellbeing and quality of life and to reduce costs and pressure on services. The SAIL overall objective is to stimulate active ageing and longer independent living by identifying new ways of helping people remain independent for longer, more self-reliant and less dependent on traditional health care and social care services. Different from the current, mono disciplinary apporach, SAIL will introduce a social innovation process of co-creation to identify new partnerships and opportunities, especially in unlikely combinations between different sectors, to develop new, sustainable business ans service models that encourage active ageing. Cadzand is village near the coast, which exists of two parts: Cadzand Village and Cadzand-Bad. Both are 2 km apart. The local population lives mostly in the village part, while second home owners and tourists (mostly Belgian) stay mainly in the Bad-area. The idea is to better combine both areas, finding sustainable solutions, that keep the elderly active and increase vitality, also tackling the problem of loneliness by looking at networksolutions.

The municipality of Sluis wants to give Cadzand-Bad a powerful impulse with the recognition of a badstatus and to the achievement of this profiling as a qualified vitality and wellness destination. Cadzand-Bad can become of a classic coast destination to a contemporary OASIS by the sea where vitality, wellness and health quality and professional are offered. The underlying goal is the development of a contemporary and high-quality form of tourism that spending via a new impetus and new audiences year round tourism. The utilisation of products and services for broader target groups, both tourists and inhabitants, has a positive effect on the availibility and profitibility of products and services.

In March 2014 Cadzand-Bad was awarded the Badstatus. From that time on Cadzand-Bad may call itself Bad Cadzand-Bad. This point in time marks the beginning of a new process. A process to implement, evolve and create more content to the badstatus itself enabling it over time to grow and to mature itself. Both municipality and entrepreneurs play an important role and they have to invest in order to make this work. Commissioned by the municipality of Sluis Impuls Zeeland and the HZ University of Applied Sciences are developing an incentive program in which way the municipality Sluis can put health tourism even more on the map. Within this incentive program is the development of Badstatus Cadzand-Bad (including vitalityboulevard) and Healthy Food Chain, are example projects. Finally within the provincial partnership “Healthy in Zeeland” a couple of stakeholders, like Impuls/HZ/Sport Zeeland and so on,  want to help fulfill some of the economical and social opportunities of a healthier way of life.

Assets and resources

Expertise on public health, tourism and health tourism. Experience with projects in the region, familiar with working with local governments, entrepreneurs in tourism and public health. Experience in citizens participation. Knowledge of the local look and feel (by working). A network of people in public health, tourism, entrepreneurs and other involved organisations. Resources like health data from the health monitor and from the ‘Staat van Zeeland’ presented in the Zeelandscan and the knowledge of the touristic sector of Kenniscentrum Kusttoerisme.

Geographical setting

Cadzand is rural village near the coast, which exists of two parts: Cadzand Village and Cadzand-Bad. Both are 2 km apart. The local population lives mostly in the village part, while second home owners and tourists (mostly Belgian) stay mainly in the Bad-area. Cadzand is situated nearby Belgium. Cadzand has a natural coastline, compared to the Belgian coastline. That's why a lot of Belgian tourists visit this part of the Netherlands. Cadzand-Bad is situated next to the Zwinregion (nature reserve). The regions offers a lots of opportunities for walking, cycling and relaxation. Cadzand is surrounded by agricultural land, which offers a lot of local products. Futhermore the small rural villages are connected by rural roads and cycle paths.

Current situation

Cadzand village has a lack of services like a supermarket. The village has a couple restaurants, a small bakery, a few sport accommodation, a campsite, a church, a spiritual centre and a couple of bed & breakfasts. The elderly social club organises ones a month a lunch for the elderly in the neighbourhood, but not every elderly is involved. We like to broaden the targetgroup and involve other types of elderly.

Demand

We have a list of values we collected during our interviews and meetings:

• Safety (not going out when its dark outside)
• Social Safety
• Independence (doing what you want)
• Social network
• Meet people and be together (eating together)
• Cosiness (being together and doing things together)
• Freedom (planning your own daily activities)
• Be active (mainly for the younger < 70 years)
• Creativity
• Traditional/ conservative (little readiness to change)
• Sobriety
• Difficulty asking for help
• Livibility dorp Cadzand (hardly any services and facilities available to meet eachother)
• Fellow humanity (looking after each other)
• Involvement
• Connection with your roots

Expansion

This pilot is new and therefore we have to start implementing from bottom up within a relatively new network.

Information capture for your project

See the following appendices:

• Logboek Cadzand Healthy Foodchain
• Plan Cadzand eet gezond (under construction)

Acceptability

• We had contact with the chairman of the second home Association. He has a second home in Breskens. Every coastal village has it's own representative. However the representative of Cadzand was unable to participate the stakeholdermeetings. We are planning a seperate meeting with him.
• In Cadzand we are planning a second interview session with tourists to verify and enrich the pilot ideas. The interviews will be done by students.
• The city council of Cadzand knows the inhabitants very well, they are the representatives of the community.
• The city council of approaching the lonely elderly inhabitants personal.
• We have a good relationship with the chairman of the elderly social club and she has a key position in the community of Cadzand village. During the design and develop phase we faced different challenges:
  • We interviewed several tourists on the boulevard of Cadzand-Bad. It is very difficult to involve tourists in stakeholdermeetings.
  • We were facing difficulties the availability of students for doing interviews with tourists.
  • different elderly inhabitants, with different interests and different needs. These different groups don't mingle and don't feel the need to mingle. Therefore it is not easy to get a good insight of the whole target group. There is not one eldery group.
  • The representatives of the elderly participating in our stakeholdersmeetings are not representing all the elderly of Cadzand. Therefore we additionally spoke te several types of elderly people.
  • The people of Cadzand village are not very much into new ideas and new activities (traditional)
  • In this design and development phase there is no viable business case forseen for the entrepreneurs. The involved entrepreneurs feel a social responsiblity for doing something good for the community (once a year and not structural).
  • Fysical distance of the pilotpartners GGD Zeeland and Impuls Zeeland makes it more difficult to get a real social innovation. The projectpartners are not living in Cadzand and are not a part of their community and their culture.
  • It stays a challenge to involve tourists and second home residents in our stakeholdersmeetings.
  • Arranging finances for the testing of the pilots cost a lot of time.
  • The volunteers of the community of Cadzand are facing a lack of time to organize new activities.
  • We expierence barriers to ask touristic entrepreneurs involving their guests with interviews of stakeholdersmeetings, it feels like harassment. Is is also difficult to involve the tourists in stakeholdermeetings, because we organise the meetings during low season (otherwise entrepreneurs don't have time).
  • By exchanging ideas and experiences with our buddyproject Dementia friendly walk we learned that when you organise activities for the elderly, accessibility plays a major role. We experienced that when we walked the Dementia friendly walk. Also by our own experience and by reflection of the target group we know that accessibility is very important for joining the activities. Furthermore we experienced the strength of the existing voluntary network which makes the dementia friendly walks possible. It learns us the importance to join existing networks where volunteers are already involved with the targetgroup.

Adaptation

During the selection of the pilot ideas the Original plan for meals on wheels didn't fit the first needs of inhabitants and also can't be realised during pilot period (because of municipal regulations). Therefore we selected together with the stakeholders other pilotideas.

Key stakeholders and relations

• Village council of Cadzand
• Social club for elderly people Cadzand
• Municipality of Sluis
• Several entrepreneurs of the touristic sector
• Association of

second home owners West-Zeeuws-Vlaanderen

• Wim de Regt as Foodexpert
• Hans Everse as Foodexpert