cycling to care - Integrating Emotional Well-being for Pro-environmental Behavior Change

In an era marked by the ""global boiling"" phenomenon, there's an intensifying emotional toll from concurrent crises, manifesting in heightened anxieties and depressive feelings.

They are especially palpable among the youth, where the intersection with rising climate anxieties often stymie proactive environmental actions due to a nexus of psychological complexities, societal dynamics, knowledge disparities, and infrastructural impediments.Responding to this multifaceted predicament, the ""Cycling to Care"" (c2c) project intertwines emotional resilience with eco-conscious actions.

The project anchors its philosophy on the understanding that emotional health and environmental awareness can be mutually reinforcing.

Central to c2c's approach is the ""Cycling Without Age"" (CWA) initiative, a unique program that bridges generational divides by enabling young volunteers to offer trishaw bike rides to older individuals in urban green spaces.

Through a longitudinal study held at the Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal), c2c assesses the evolution of mental health states and environmental perceptions among young CWA participants in Barcelona.

Drawing from these findings, the project then crafts and tests an avant-garde sustainability education module at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya (UPC), enriching CWA encounters with ad hoc seminars and facilitated safe spaces to foster emotional robustness and sustainability literacy in young participants, envisioning them as the torchbearers of a better tomorrow.

Ultimately, ""Cycling to Care"" stands out as an inventive confluence of mental health support and environmental stewardship, holding promise for scalability and adaptability across various CWA chapters and academic institutions across Europe.