Our Strategy
This is how Get A Grip achieves success: Our strategy for combating loneliness among students.
Who and what?
Get A Grip offers innovative sustainable solutions designed to enhance the well-being of university students by fostering social connections and promoting physical fitness. Our initiative provides a range of unique activities, including climbing, yoga, hiking, and community events, all specifically tailored for university settings. These activities not only help students stay physically active but also create opportunities for meaningful social interactions.
How?
To reach a wider audience, we promote our programs through campus channels like Profilen (find our interview with Profilen about Get A Grip on our Blog) and social media. This comprehensive approach helps us engage more students and create a supportive community where everyone can thrive. Through these efforts, Get A Grip is making a significant impact on student well-being and fostering a healthier, more connected university environment.
Our approach
In this way, we ensure that these solutions are practical, accessible, and sustainable by utilizing existing campus facilities and resources. This allows us to offer high-quality programs without the need for significant additional investments, making it easier for students to participate.
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We design and implement a variety of programs and activities that encourage students to connect through shared experiences. By partnering with local businesses and sports institutions, such as university sports clubs, we can offer specialized classes and events that cater to the diverse interests of our student community.
With this strategy of addressing students directly where they spend most of their time, we defined both expected outputs and anticipated outcomes:
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Expected Outputs:
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Number of Attended Members: We see a growing number of participants in our programs and activities, indicating increasing interest and engagement within the student community.
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Participation Rates: We track participation rates across various activities to ensure our offerings meet the diverse interests and needs of students.
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Feedback and Satisfaction Surveys: Regular surveys from participants provide valuable insights into their experiences, helping us continuously improve our programs and maintain high levels of satisfaction.
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Anticipated Outcomes:
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Increased Physical Activity Levels: Our member participating in our activities report higher levels of physical activity, contributing to their overall health and fitness.
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Enhanced Social Connections and Community Building: Our programs foster stronger social connections among students, creating a supportive and connected community.
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Improved Overall Well-being and Reduced Stress Levels: By combining physical activity with social interaction, we improve the well-being and lower stress levels among members, positively impacting their quality of life.
Identification of Sustainability Challenges
However, initiatives such as Get A Grip also face sustainable challenges, which we take into account and for which we are constantly looking for solutions:
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Funding and Financial Stability: Get A Grip is currently dependent on donations, initiatives by members and future foundations by institutions such as the municipality of Rotterdam, the universities of the Hogeschool Rotterdam or Erasmus University, as well as private financial support. In its current status, however, the costs are manageable, as we have not yet incurred any costs for memberships from partners, our promotion works primarily through social media and word of mouth and our members show a lot of initiative. We would like to maintain this for the future, as Get A Grip is a non-profit initiative. Should costs arise at some point, the introduction of a minimal membership fee would be conceivable to cover our costs.
Member Retention and Engagement: As Get A Grip is strongly supported by our members, it is important not to lose their interest in our initiative and our activities. It is also important to adapt to changes within the membership. It is therefore important that Get A Grip continues to develop and listens to feedback from the community. To this end, we regularly conduct surveys to obtain input at regular intervals. This allows us to add new activities to our catalogue as required and ensure that our members remain part of Get A Grip.
External Factors: External circumstances are always difficult to predict, including for Get A Grip, and must therefore be considered individually. Pandemics or health crises such as COVID could be a risk to be considered, especially for Get A Grip. Should such a situation arise again that prohibits people from coming together, Get A Grip would have to adapt accordingly and realise activities in a different way.
Integration of Sustainability into Business Operations
Sustainability principles are embedded in all our operations. For instance, during event planning, we do and will prioritize eco-friendly venues, and in our daily activities, we implement practices that minimize our environmental impact. We use recyclable materials for our events, actively minimize waste, and promote energy-efficient operations. For example, we choose biodegradable utensils and plates for event catering and utilize digital communication to reduce paper use. Additionally, we implement green transportation options for our events, such as encouraging carpooling and promoting the use of bicycles. We also encourage our participants to adopt sustainable practices, like bringing reusable water bottles and reducing single-use plastics.
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To monitor our progress, we will generate comprehensive sustainability reports detailing reductions in waste and advancements in transportation options. Through face-to-face conversations with our members, we will not only gather data but also actively promote additional sustainable practices. This approach allows us to influence our immediate environment towards greater sustainability, thereby reducing the environmental footprint of both our operations and the actions of our members. Furthermore, we aim to raise awareness and foster the adoption of sustainable practices among our members.
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With these measures and our overarching efforts to reduce the social isolation of students and their feelings of loneliness, Get A Grip contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Specifically:
SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Through our endeavors, we actively work towards achieving the target of 3.4: By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.
Additionally, by reducing isolation and loneliness, we directly impact Target 3.5: Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.
SDG 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
By exemplifying sustainable practices and motivating our members to do the same, we actively contribute to the implementation of Target 12.5: By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling, and reuse as well as Target 12.6: Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle.