Mental health is the foundation of individual wellbeing and the basis of a well-functioning society. This state evolves according to both personal and external factors, the socio-economic context and even climate change. The quality of urban (and rural) life therefore depends on the mental health of the people who live there.
By Angelika Gross, French Movement for a Basic Income MFRB
Isn’t it time to analyse the interaction of these individual and external factors in order to better understand the aspects that favour or deteriorate the mental health of people in a given urban or rural context?
In her lecture on the pilot plan for the implementation of a universal basic income in Catalonia, Sergi Raventos, director of the Office of the Pilot Plan of the Generalitat de Catalunya, reviews the relationship between universal basic income and mental health in experiments carried out in many parts of the world and will present the human right to a basic income as a beneficial tool for the physical and mental health of the population.
The conference:
“Basic income experiments – what impact will their application have on mental health?” Conference-debate open to all, on 2 February at 18.00 hrs, in hybrid format, at the UTOPIA BOOKshop, 1 rue Frédéric Sauton Paris 5ième M° Maubert Mutualité ou Saint Michel.
Organisers: the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Mouvement Français pour un Revenu de Base, the seminar Champs, Usines et Ateliers aujourd’hui (EHESS), and the Mouvement Utopia.
Academic formation
Sergi Raventós Panyella (Barcelona, 1968) holds a PhD in Sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), where he obtained his doctorate with the thesis “Desigualtat socioeconòmica i salut mental: la proposta d’una renda bàsica per a protegir i promoure la salut mental” (Socio-economic inequality and mental health: the proposal of a basic income to protect and promote mental health). He holds a Master’s degree in Social Theory from the UAB and a diploma in Social Work from the University of Barcelona (UB).
Professional career
From October 1998 to 2021, he worked as head of professional integration and social worker at the private foundation Els Tres Turons.
There he was in charge of socio-occupational insertion and business prospecting, as well as tutoring internships, support in the workplace, professional guidance and job search modules, and knowledge of the labour market for people with mental health problems who had been participating in various programmes and services for occupational insertion for years. He has worked as a social worker and employment counsellor in the pre-employment service of the Els Tres Turons Foundation and has participated in the Aprop Joves programme of Barcelona Activa, aimed at young people with psychological problems and mental health difficulties.
Publications
He is the author of numerous articles and publications on labour integration, mental health and universal basic income. He has collaborated on several books, including La renta básica en la era de las grandes desigualdades (El Viejo Topo, 2017) and La renta básica, ¿por qué y para qué? (Libros de La Catarata, 2021), and has been a member of the organising committee of several seminars, congresses and conferences on the subject.
