Well done to Emma and Bill for getting the After Work Club shortlisted for The NESTA Ageing Well Challenge.
The Ageing Well Challenge prize is looking for innovations that can reduce the isolation and/or increase the mobility of vulnerable older people by providing new opportunities for communities to come together to give time, skills and resources.
Drop Emma and Bill a note to hello-at-theafterworkclub.co.uk if you would like to get involved or sign up for our next event in January 2013.
Over the last 7 months we have been working on a project to find ways to help keep older people connected as they enter into retirement. It culminated in the launch of The After Work Club a network to provide inspiration, connections, impetus and resources to redefine what life beyond your main career can hold. We talked to over 300 people to better understand the issues surrounding retirement and have gone through countless sessions where we analysed these insights and turned them into ideas for a sustainable social enterprise. Here are my 3 big learnings about retirement:
For someone who retirement seems long, long way off this has been quite a journey of discovery. I hadn’t even considered it, let alone thought about what it might be like, whether I’d want to retire, what I’d lose, what I’d gain, what I might struggle with. Check out The After Work Clubto see what we created to try and tackle some of these issues.
I’ve just finished watching the really powerful new film made for the Dying Matters Awareness Week. I think they’ve done a great job of illustrating the importance of making end of life wishes clear and changing the way the nation thinks about death. Which is an area at thinkpublic we have used creative tools to work with people to explore.
Featuring five scenarios, ranging from choosing where you wish to die, choosing whether you would wish to be resuscitated, leaving a will, planning your funeral through to making preparations for your pets, the film examines what can happen if you don’t make your wishes known.
I have just been reading an interesting article written by PSFK reviewing a Stanford research paper that explores how you can increase people’s saving behaviors for the future, through age-progressed rendering of their future self!
As many people fail to save what they will need for retirement, because of a lack of belief or imagination, to identify with their future selves. The research studies showed people future images of themselves, all of which resulted in the tendency to accept later monetary rewards over immediate ones.
Looking at my own photography above, I admit it’s pretty scary!
We are proud to announce that the IntergerenationAll programme we have been developing with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has won an award! The work was recognised as Leading The Way in the recent United For All Ages Awards.
You can have a look at the other categories and winners here.
But (before we crack open the champaign) this work is by no means over. We are still busy on the programme currently looking at ways we can support each IntergenerationAll project think about sustainability and enterprise. We will also be turning our learning into a tool-kit for people who are interested in prototyping and running innovative intergenerational ventures in the future.
If you are interested in finding out more about this work, or any of thinkpublic’s work in aging, please get in touch: ella.britton@thinkpublic.com.
We have won an award
I was talking with the lovely Liz Shaw at Community Network, a social enterprise that uses telephone befriending groups to bring older people together. Liz mentioned that they are looking for volunteers to help make a difference to older people. The role would be to help connect older people to build friendships and support networks with their peers via a telephone network service.
So I said I’d give a shout out for them. So if you want to do something good, it’s a total commitment of 1 hour a week. Contact elizabeth@community-network.org
I was lucky enough to be part of the Action for Age launch in Lisbon last week, which saw students, designers, and practitioners come together around the theme of ageing and intergenerational activity.
It’s been a privilege to meet people from both Portugal and the Uk who are working passionately to improve life for people of all ages. You can read more about programme here
Three of the gulbenkian funded intergenerationAll projects also got involved in this event. We were able to spend some time on the site of one of the Portuguese projects in altar Lisboa who are doing some incredible work bringing urban farming and community led regeneration to a new housing development on the edge of Lisbon. It is one if the first examples of a Portuguese community leading and producing a public space strategy in their area.
I have thought a lot while being here about the value of looking at the ageing challenge with a much more holistic perspective. How can we, for example, create environments, services and products that enable everyone to age well, age with joy and live the life they want to live.
As Paul Cann said, from Age UK Oxfordshire, “What’s the point in living if you are not enjoying yourself?”
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