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Description
The project aims to support the principle of seniors’ equality and non-discrimination in a rapidly aging society, to increase their self-confidence and prestige, to create conditions for active aging. We want to use different platforms such as public discussions, communication campaigns to introduce senior volunteering and its benefits to elderly people''s life and present it as one of the forms of seniors'' participation in a civil society. For that we plan to use examples of good practice of senior volunteers from Letokruh.Through that we will increase awareness of volunteering and to activate new volunteers, involve new recipient organizations (non-profit, contributory, etc.). In order to gain innovative ideas of senior volunteering we launch an accelerator and invite people from different areas. Beside that, we want to involve seniors in the life of the community. We will offer them a space for meetings, so called “SeniorHUB” with different activities focused on discussion, education, entertainment, inspiration, sharing. We will invite them to various community activities, organised by Letokruh or in cooperation with our partners. Senior influencers have an important role in the project. They are nominated from the existing volunteers of Letokruh. They will motivate volunteers and also gather incentives from other seniors, which may increase their and their peers'' quality of everyday life. Selected demands will be presented to local government representatives. With project activities, we will offer seniors the possibility of meaningful involvement in civil society life and we will thus fight against the negative effects of aging. We act upon the “Strategic framework for preparation for the aging of society 2021-2025, MLSA”.
Summary of project results
The population is ageing; according to demographic forecasts, 22.3% of the population in the Czech Republic will be over 65 years of age in 2025 and by the middle of the century their number will approach 30%. (source: Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs "Strategic framework for preparing for an ageing society 2021 - 2025")
The increasing number of people of pre-retirement and retirement age brings more ageing-related problems, such as the exclusion of more people from society, their gradual isolation due to the loss of partners and peers, the lack of interest or time of family members and citizens in general. For example, it appears that seniors spend approximately 40% of their leisure time in front of the television. All this brings greater health complications and psychological problems.
The strategic framework presents the creation of conditions for personal activity of seniors, their civic engagement, volunteering or the development of quality interpersonal and family relationships as one of the possible solutions to prepare for ageing. According to them, active ageing should mean continued participation in social, economic, cultural, spiritual and civic life.
In this project, we planned to implement targeted activities to increase the number of seniors involved in civil society and community life, primarily through senior volunteering, especially in Prague 4 and beyond.
The project focused on the involvement of seniors in civil society by supporting volunteer activities of seniors and raising awareness of this role of seniors in society. The support took the form of coordination of 111 senior volunteers (recruitment, contractual basis, training, methodological guidance, motivation) and 72 receiving organisations and 58 individuals (selection, contractual basis, training and methodological guidance of staff). For new and existing receiving organisations we have prepared a methodology for volunteer involvement in the form of a video interview with the coordinator. For the community of volunteers and interested parties, we implemented 67 activities with 416 participants (including 58 training activities with 313 participants).
We have created a group of 22 senior influencers (selection, methodological guidance, training) who we have involved in various events/activities. We set up 3 idea accelerator meetings for volunteer activities, which resulted in 21 activities that we piloted and evaluated. We organized 3 public discussions on volunteering in the elderly and active living and civic engagement of seniors for the general public and professionals. We presented our activities at 3 community events with the active participation of senior volunteers
Intensive communication coverage of all project activities was an integral part of the project.
Volunteering in itself expresses active "leisure" activity (seniors are not just recipients of activities, but are themselves involved in the life of society), but the novelty and added value is the involvement of these senior volunteers in the dissemination and promotion of active citizenship and the idea of volunteering (not only) in the elderly. The project has been very successful in engaging senior influencers. Thanks to appropriate guidance, the seniors gradually lost their shyness and publicly acted as carriers of the idea of senior volunteering and active citizenship (peer-to-peer). We consider this to be key throughout the project.
We consider it a confirmation of the success of our activities that Letokruh is invited as an expert on the active involvement of seniors in society to various events (conferences, working groups, etc.), but also, for example, to live broadcasts on Czech Television. The successful impact of our PR activities (especially the TV inputs, where senior influencers motivate their peers by their own example) is also evidenced by the fact that in the last year Letokruh has been contacted by interested seniors from various regions of the Czech Republic. The next logical step, which Letokruh has already started to implement, is to expand its activities to other regions of the Czech Republic, both in online form and in cooperation with local NGOs.
We worked with three project partners in the implementation. With the Institute of Social Services in Prague 4, we further deepened our cooperation in order to expand the possibilities of our volunteers'' services to their users. At the same time, we gave more active senior users more space to get acquainted with volunteering opportunities and encouraged them to get involved. We involved the organization''s management in sharing good practice at events we organized for the public. Another partner was a commercial entity - PASSERINVEST GROUP a.s. We see its involvement as very effective and beneficial. Thanks to the cooperation we could treat our senior volunteers to many interesting activities and experiences offered by the company. We very much welcomed the offer of renting space for public events and the opportunity to be part of their communication channels. In general, we can say that thanks to this project our mutual relations have shifted and deepened. Thanks to the cooperation with the third partner - Jihoměstská sociální a.s. (social services) - we have intensified the offer of our services to its users and expanded to another part of Prague.