Loneliness is a phenomenon that has become increasingly relevant in recent years and is now one of the main challenges we face as a society. In their awareness of this, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and Adinberri have spent more than three years building a shared and co-participated roadmap, a strategy against loneliness: HARIAK, which is part of the Etorkizuna Eraikiz initiative.

We work with our sights set on the present, but without taking our eyes off the future.

In 2021 we built the strategic framework with the municipal and social agents in each region. 77 town councils, 6 OSIs (integrated health organisations) of Osakidetza (Basque Public Health Service), 98 local agents and 20 companies and innovation centres participated in this process. Thanks to your support, we have built a common strategic framework for action, Hariak, the strategy against loneliness in Gipuzkoa. This strategy will help us to continue tackling the phenomenon of loneliness from an intergenerational and collaborative perspective, strengthening social and community ties.

Subsequently, in the year 2022, we proceeded to return the work carried out through different events organised across the territory, promoting a broad public conversation aimed at citizens, with the participation of 1549 people, and starting the 1st Action Plan of the Strategy (2022 2026). In 2023 we took another step forward to continue promoting and jointly developing projects linked to the Action Plan and we developed a new participatory process, which received the participation of 57 town councils/development agencies in Gipuzkoa, 77 local social entities and Osakidetza through 4 OSIs; 274 people in total.

Currently, in the year 2024, we have taken the first steps of the European project KORALE, led by the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa through Adinberri and set within the Interreg Europe programme. The aim of the project is to ensure that unwanted loneliness, both among youth and the elderly, is at the centre of public policies throughout Europe. Together with Adinberri, five other countries are participating in this project: Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium and Portugal. In addition, within the framework of the 1st Action Plan of the Hariak strategy, Adinberri continues to promote projects linked to the prevention and tackling of loneliness in the territory. At the same time, it is working on the development of an Observatory including a map of resources that makes these projects, as well as other initiatives linked to loneliness, both in the territory and internationally, visible and available to the public and the different agents.