The clock is ticking for Europe’s mountain areas. Demographic change through economic migration and declining birth rates mean many hillside towns face slow motion decline. But an EU project in Italy's Aosta Valley region has come to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative seeks to protect vulnerable people living in mountain communities by providing health and social care.

At the height of the epidemic, nurses went from house to house to test and reassure patients. Valentina was one of them. In 2018, she left a permanent job in the UK to join what is known as the MisMi project.