AAA Action Day 2007
On 6-7 March 2007, EULAR organised for the fourth time the Alliance Against Arthritis Action day
(AAA) in Brussels. This year’s AAA Action Day served to recapitulate the outcomes of
EULAR’s European activities in the past months and to discuss future priorities of the
rheumatology sector.
The main elements of this year’s AAA Action Day were a meeting on advocacy strategies and the
future EULAR EU activities as well as a whole-day workshop for EULAR and Social Leagues
representatives.
The AAA strategic meeting consisted of two sessions. In the first, participants could hear from
guest speaker Ms Mary Baker, Vice-President of the European Brain Council about her
organisation’s experience in the field of advocacy, capacity-building and campaigning at the
Europe level. Not least, the presentation included some inspiring ideas on how to deal with the
European institutions in order to achieve maximum results.
In the second session, the participants had the opportunity to hear some proposals for future
activities from Sören Haar from the Brussels Public Affairs agency EACON and discuss the
future priorities of EULAR work at the EU level.
The main element of the AAA 2007 was a workshop for EULAR and EULAR Social Leagues delegates. This
year, the workshop brought together 27 participants from all over Europe. The workshop consisted of
two parts dedicated to two broad topics of interest for EULAR - the EU public health and disability
and non-discrimination policy.
The morning part of the workshop included an introduction of the latest call for proposals under
the EU health programme and a presentation of the future Community action programme in the field of
public health. It was followed by a session moderated by Ms Lara Garrido-Herrero, General Secretary
of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) which provided some valuable practical insights into
how a successful application for funding under the EU Health Programme should look like. The health
policy theme was completed by a brainstorming session on a possible future EULAR proposal moderated
by Maarten de Wit, Vice President of the EULAR Social Leagues.
The afternoon part of the workshop addressed the theme “EU disability and
non-discrimination”. In the first session, participants learned about the European Disability
Forum (EDF) campaign “1million4disability” by Helena González-Sancho, Press
and Communication officer at the EDF. This introduction was then followed by a joint brainstorming
session on how EULAR and the national Social Leagues could support the EDF campaign and help
gathering the signatures.
Finally, in a brainstorming session moderated by Neil Betteridge, Chief Executive of Arthritis
Care, the participants started a discussion on a first draft of a “Brussels
declaration” on rheumatic diseases and disability. The Declaration draft will be further
discussed and finalised in the next weeks and will serve as an additional awareness-raising and
lobbying instrument at the national and European level.
