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Your health and wellbeing

  • Belfast Health Development Unit

    The Belfast Health Development Unit (BHDU) was established in 2010 and comprises staff from Belfast City Council, Public Health Agency and Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. BHDU's aim is to support collaborative approaches to address health inequalities in Belfast.

    Currently BHDU staff work on these priority areas:

    • Active Belfast
    • Mental health and emotional wellbeing
    • Lifelong learning
    • Age-friendly Belfast

    For more information, email [email protected] or go to Making life better together (link opens in new window).

  • Mental health and emotional wellbeing

    Take 5

    One of the partnership’s initiatives is the development of the Take 5 guide.

    The guide outlines five key actions everyone can easily do every day to make themselves feel better.

    1. Connect
    2. Be active
    3. Learn
    4. Give to others
    5. Take notice

    You can download a copy of the Take 5 guide from the Public Health Agency's website (opens in new window).

    Our benches

    We have installed 16 benches with special QR codes in Belfast parks to encourage users to take 5 and access information to look after their emotional wellbeing.

    The Take 5 benches have been installed in the following parks across the city. 

  • Lifelong Learning

    In 2018, Belfast joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities.

    The UNESCO network is an international policy-oriented network for inspiration, know-how and best practice for developing learning cities.

    The network provides Belfast with access to experts from across the world. It also allows Belfast to showcase how we are using learning to address inequalities and make life better for everyone in the city.

    The Belfast Strategic Partnership focuses on learning within the city and addresses inequalities through the Learning Charter for Belfast and The Belfast Festival of Learning.

    Belfast was honoured with a UNESCO Learning City Award in 2021 in recognition for its work promoting lifelong learning across the city.

    The UNESCO Learning Cities Award was established to further promote lifelong learning for all age groups and showcase good practices in building learning cities.  It is conferred on cities who have demonstrated outstanding progress in this area.

    The Belfast Festival of Learning is an annual programme of events promoting learning across the city.

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