In 1997, Alzheimer Europe:
- has members in all the countries of the European Union, as well as in Poland, Romania and Switzerland. All in all, 22 organisations from 18 countries participate in the activities of Alzheimer Europe. Close contacts have also been established with the Norwegian, Icelandic, Czech and Turkish Alzheimer associations.
- has continued its work on establishing an inventory of the services and structure of its member organisations.
- has been in contact with a great number of other organisations that are active in the field.
- officially launched the website at the beginning of June and registered in all the important search engines on the Net. Also developed an extensive network of sites which refer surfers to the Alzheimer Europe website which can be consulted under: http://www.alzheimer-europe.org.
- has finished cataloguing the relevant information that already exists on the level of the different member organisations and has produced a first outline of the Manual.
- was represented at all meetings of the EACH Consortium
- consistently informed all member organisations about the adoption of a new budget line in the field of Alzheimer’s disease and on the new call for proposals under this budget line. Organisations received this information in their national language and Alzheimer Europe offered to help organisations in filling out their application and in finding prospective partners.
- the development of new EU-projects was one of the main tasks of the Alzheimer Europe office, as the continuation of the office to a large extent depended on this.
- submitted four projects (Lucerne Conference, Lawnet, Helpline data sharing and Database on European projects) before the final deadline set by the European Commission. The experts committee chose only two of these projects (Lucerne Conference and Lawnet) that have since been forwarded to the budgetary authority of the European Commission. A final decision on these projects is nevertheless still pending.
- has been invited to participate in the new project submitted by the University of Glamorgan which aims at bringing together the main projects that received funding under last year’s budget-line.
- public image initiatives have been taken:
- a reception for MEPs was hosted in Brussels
- the Internet site of Alzheimer Europe was inaugurated in the presence of MEPs, representatives of the European Commission and the Luxembourg government
- a leaflet presenting Alzheimer Europe, its members, its objectives and its projects has been produced and will be presented in Helsinki.
- a poster presenting Alzheimer Europe has equally been produced and will also be presented in Helsinki.
- has established regular contacts with Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) and representatives of both organisations met on several occasions.
- participated in the activities which ADI organised on the occasion of World Alzheimer’s Day.
- continued its co-operation in the framework of this year’s EACH project. Discussions arose on the continued relationship with regard to the new project submitted by EACH.
- is a member of the European Disability Forum (EDF) and is represented in the mental health sector through the European Regional Council of the World Federation for Mental Health (ERC). Therefore closer contacts have been established with both the EDF and the ERC and representatives of Alzheimer Europe participated at the annual conferences of both platforms.