Population ageing is a phenomenon that affects almost every developed country in the world, with both the number and proportion of older people growing across the globe. As Europeans expect to live increasingly long lives, their attention turns to how they can make the most of life after retirement. Retirement can be a challenging time of life as people become vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness due to the death of a spouse, separation from family, and the loss of social contacts and friends. Loneliness in retirement often results in low self-esteem and lack of purpose, which then lead to depression, mental health problems and physical illnesses. To tackle loneliness, the retirees are often advised to stay social, explore new interests and stay positive. Indeed, studies show that people who engage in meaningful, productive activities with others tend to live longer, boost their mood, and find a sense of purpose. The elderly citizens, who engage in community social gatherings, church or U3A activities, feel happier, however, most of them lack self-fulfillment, and miss the opportunities to share their knowledge, competences and capacities which they have accumulated throughout their lifespan. Although the benefits of volunteering have long been recognized by the European Voluntary Service as being a key factor in “promoting active citizenship and social inclusion” (European Parliament resolution of 27 October 2016 on European Voluntary Service and the promotion of volunteering in Europe 2016/2872(RSP)), the majority of programs support young people’s volunteering. There are clear differences in the level of volunteering between EU Member States. Whilst certain EU Member States have longstanding traditions in volunteering and well developed voluntary sectors, in others the voluntary sector is still emerging or poorly developed. In 2015, the EU-28 participation rate of people aged 65-74 in formal voluntary activities was: 38,7% in Netherlands, 30,7%, in Slovenia, 12,7% in Lithuania, 5% in Latvia, and 4,4% in Bulgaria (EUROSTAT, 2015). The project tackles the problem of older people’s social exclusion suggesting a way to solve the issue by creating an innovative senior volunteering award program which will benefit not only the elderly citizens but also the local communities. Also, the project contributes to the achieving of Europe 2020 benchmark: to increase the number of 15% of adults to participate in lifelong learning. The aim of the project is to empower senior adults’ active citizenship through a Senior Award Program which promotes their learning, volunteering and contributing to the society. Objectives: 1. empower senior citizens to engage in learning and take up volunteering activities following the award program developed by the partnership 2. strengthen adult educators’ competences to support senior volunteers in the pursuit of personal growth aims 3. raise public awareness on the issues related to aging societies and on the benefits that the senior volunteerism may have to the well-being of the society. To meet the above mentioned needs and implement the objectives the partnership consortium made of 5 European countries: Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands and Slovenia, will share best volunteering traditions; together they will develop 3 intellectual outputs: an Online toolkit for adults/adult educators “Promotion of Senior Adults’ Organized Volunteerism” (O1); The Senior Award Program for elderly citizens (O2); Manual for Adult educators on how to run the Senior Award Program (O3). These intellectual outputs will support the improvement of adult educators’ skills and abilities to work with senior learners in order to motivate and empower senior people’s engagement in active social life, non-formal lifelong learning, and volunteering. The developed intellectual outputs will have the possibility to be transferred and applied in other EU countries outside the project partnership. Target groups: - senior citizens (retirees, participants of U3A, etc.) - adult educators practitioners from both formal and non-formal adult education institutions, also, members organizations not primarily concerned with education (e.g. community centers, cultural houses, libraries, museums, NGOs, volunteer centers, etc.). The general methodology of the project is based on development of an innovative Senior Award Programme, complemented with adult educators’ manual on how to implement it.The intellectual outputs will be piloted in partner organizations and later will be embedded in English and partner national languages on the project website as open educational resources free of charge and without formal registration. It is expected that 80% of the participants (senior citizens) will have improved their social competences, whereas adult educators will be supplied with an innovative tool to empower senior adult engagement in lifelong learning and volunteerism.
The aim of the project was to empower older adults‘ active citizenship through a Senior Award Program which promotes their learning, volunteerism and contributing to the society. The Objectives were: 1.Empower senior citizens to engage in learning and take up volunteering activities following the award program developed by the partnership 2.Strengthen adult educators‘ competences to support senior volunteers in the pursuit of personal growth aims 3.Raise public awareness on the issues related to aging societies and on the benefits that the senior volunteerism may have to the well-being of the society. Through volunteering we wanted * to connect “inactive” older people with the world of active people; * to raise awareness about older people’s issues; * to contribute to social fairness by changing perspectives.
The necessity to launch this project stemmed from the urgent need to solve the problem of older people‘s social isolation, often caused by retirement and loneliness due to the death of a spouse, separation from family, the loss of social contacts and friends. Loneliness in retirement often results in low self-esteem and lack of purpose, which then lead to depression, mental health problems and physical illnesses. To prevent such issues, support older people’s active aging: learning, self-development, volunteering, staying physically fit and actively engaged in social life, the partnership decided to create an innovative Senior Award Program. This program offers plenty of opportunities for older people to share their knowledge, competences and capacities which they have accumulated throughout their lifespan What is more, the project aimed to contributes to the achieving Europe 2020 benchmark: to increase the number of 15% of adults to participate in lifelong learning. To work towards this goal, they saw the need to improve the adult educators-practitioners' skills and abilities to work with older people in order to motivate and empower their engagement in active social life, non-formal lifelong learning and volunteering activities.