On Wednesday the 4th of November at 2.30 pm, the Union of Private Social Solidarity Institutions and the APEL School will present their new joint project, called ‘Adopt a Grandparent.’
The project, financed by the European Social Fund through its Services and Social Intervention and Health Networks, will take place in the auditorium P. Mário Casagrande (at the APEL School) and will be attended by the Regional Secretariat of Social Inclusion and Citizenship, all UIPSS’s affiliates from RAM and participating students from the APEL School. This project aims to promote active aging, intergenerationality and civic and family participation, as well as the physical and mental well-being of the elderly through their participation as a teacher of arts and crafts, aimed at school groups, through remembering and preserving traditional arts, crafts and traditions. Furthermore, the project hopes to encourage the elderly into not seeing themselves as a vulnerable and dependent section of the population but as an active portion of society who have a lot to give in terms of experience, education and life skills to younger generations.
This project looks at three main activities:
Activity 1 – Professional Training for Technicians and Youth: Technological training courses created with the use of UFCD’s from the Family Assistant and Community Support course and the Psychosocial Support Technician course. They aim to provide skills to young people who will participate in the project and to technicians from IPSS institutions, related to the monitoring and assistance of active aging. Four trainers with proven experience in the area of intervention of the proposed training paths will be allocated to the courses.
Activity 2 – Atelier de Artes – “Sharing Cultures and Knowledge”: aims at integrating the elderly and young people in activities related to the arts, where the sharing of techniques and knowledge between the two social groups will be promoted. In this way young people can create closer ties and obtain knowledge of the cultures and traditions of people with extensive life experience and knowledge of a reality very different from the present. In parallel, the elderly, with the interaction of young people, have the opportunity to appreciate their value to society particularly as they still have much to contribute to life in general. It will be an activity that will encompass active aging.
Activity 3 – “Adopt a Grandparent” Project: aims to promote a close relationship between young people and the elderly. It will provide the elderly with company for a few hours a day, thus mitigating the loneliness that often affects aging populations. It will also provide young people with a set of experiences that enrich their knowledge of life, its values and lessons.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
