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THE GOVERNMENT HAS launched a series of wellbeing initiatives that Taoiseach Micheál Martin says are designed to “help us through the winter”.
The Keep Well campaign is designed in the context of Covid-19 restrictions and is conceived as a way of maintaining physical and mental health.
The campaign includes initiatives around five themes, each of which has a list of supports and resources published online. The five themes are: keeping active, staying connected, switching off, eating well and minding your mood.
To support people who don’t have online access, the Department of Health says local authorities are being supported “to provide a local community helpline and befriending service”.
Sport Ireland is leading a number of initiatives to support physical activity including virtual or restricted 5km runs and a walking challenge.
Bord Bia is also part of the campaign and will also be “promoting and showcasing a range of easy to prepare nutritional and seasonal recipes”
Ahead of Christmas, the Design & Crafts Council Ireland is to develop a series of workshops to promote Christmas crafts and Creative Ireland is to work with local authorities to offer localised creative initiatives in their areas.
Creative Ireland also supports an initiative by the Mobile Music Machine to present live, outdoor socially distanced concerts outside residential care homes and hospital settings across the country.
Speaking about this initiative, Culture Minister Catherine Martin said it’s one that has been successful and will continue.
Given my own background, I’m particularly proud of Covid Care concerts. Some of the most talented and experienced musicians and singers are travelling to perform outside nursing homes 182 performances already. This will continue during the winter months and into 2021.
Launching the Keep Well campaign today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said this was a difficult time for everyone in the country.
“The adjustment required of us all in the months since this pandemic came into our lives has been difficult for everyone but I am proud of the way we have adapted and come together to protect ourselves and others in the face of the threat posed by Covid-19,” he said.
The necessary restrictions imposed to protect life, health and our healthcare services have had to continue for longer than many of us may have hoped at the outset and I understand that many of us are now experiencing fatigue.
“The aim of this new campaign is to equip people with ideas and strategies to help us through the winter. This will help strengthen communities and individuals and restore hope that brighter days are coming”.
Further details of the Keep Well campaign are available on the Healthy Ireland website
Does this really need to be in the news??
@Gerard Kennedy: well actually yes….apart from being high profile nice years of best memories on my Instagram. It’s my modern day photo album might not have the originals and I’d be very annoyed if I lost my accout. So good to highlight that it’s possible to fall victim to this.
@Tom Ripley: Get a Onedrive account. Backs up all my photos from my phone to the cloud and when I turn on my Desktop it downloads from cloud onto hard drive. Computer then automatically backs my system up onto a separate hard drive. I’ve technically 4 copies of all my photos and I only have to set it up once.
My password used to be password1. I didn’t think it was strong enough so I recently changed it to password2. Maybe I should change it again?
@Mattress Dick: yeah best be safe I suggest you use mine as it’s more secure “P@ssword1”
@Shane Cormican: Password2021 would be more up to date
@Cosmos20202020: Maybe you should update your username to Cosmos21212121 just incase
Does this really need to make the news headlines???
@Gerard Kennedy: Not if you are the hacker. Yes for everybody else.
@Gerard Kennedy: You have read the news and commented twice I guess so
@Gerard Kennedy: there is a possibility someone used ‘coronavirus’ as a password, so yes.
Everyone should have 2FA enabled as a minimum on any website that supports it
Would strongly recommend LastPass or 1password to keep every password strong and unique
Terminology is important. Having your password guessed because it isnt a good password is not “being hacked”. Hacked means someone bypassed the system security and got in anyway. Someone guessing your password means someone just logged in as you, “legitimately”.
@Ronan Fahy: the term hack actually has the definition of ‘gaining unauthorized access to data or a computer’ so hack is the correct.
@NJ: but it is authorised if you enter the correct password.
@Alan McArdle: Access is not authorised because you have a username and password, at best it is confirmed to be the correct login details but there is more to authorisation than just having the correct details to access something. If someone finds a key to my front door they are not authorised to access my house.
don’t want to sound harsh, she’s been amazing,,, but if get ‘hacked’ like this, and then start giving advice about security, then well it’s a little too late.
sidenote – does facebook really care so little about it’s users that someone can’t get an account back when so obviously has been hijacked?
‘Password’ is eight character long, but not safe at all. Many passwords are easy to guess when observing what people post on social media (pets, kids, partners, dob etc), or when a whole platform or service is hacked (many have been in the past, and many will be in the future).
For those who don’t want to spend much money on a password manager, try ‘keypass’. It has a strong password generator.
It is key to have a different password for each service used, so when such service is hacked and credentials posted online, hackers don’t access all your accounts. Also make sure your email account is using a strong password too, and two factor authentication can help (with the hope the platform won’t also use it for marketing purposes).
She’s actually getting on my nerves now at this stage. Yes she has had a bad hand dealt to her and she brought awareness to the cervical smear catastrophe. When she began telling people not to call cancer sufferers fighters and telling them they are so strong I lost all respect for her.
My mam battled ovarian cancer for nearly two years and passed away last June. She was 73 and she FOUGHT it to the last day. She rallied after being told she had weeks to live. We encouraged her to fight not that she needed any encouragement. She had good days and bad days as was expected.
The doctors wanted to put her in palliative care she said no I’m going to fight this. To take away someone’s right and will to fight you may as well put them down.
I was appalled she said this.
have your say