Nothing Much Is Expected from Older People. You Don’t Say?
Due to their age older and very old people for that matter are rarely encouraged to become volunteers. However, with motivating education and efficient public campaigning older and very old people can start volunteering, thus enriching both themselves and community.
Conducted by organisations and institutions from five countries -Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Slovenia - “Keep going, reach goals, get an award: empowering senior volunteerism”, the GGA project is targeting adult educators as the direct users, and older people as the end users of its results. The latter enroll in the Award Programme embracing voluntary work, education and sporting activities binding older people with community.
Lessons learnt from the GGA project
Volunteering is an expected response to both individual and community needs in the fields of education, health, sports, social relationships, culture, economy, technological development, climate change, environmental protection, etc.
Older people’s volunteering contributes to substitute the outdated image of inactive, frail and declining older people by the image of active and contributing ones. As a result of it, older people are no more a category of people of whom nothing much is expected.
Older people’s volunteering is meant to preserve status quo and/or lead older people to social activism which is about transforming and changing. Older people have to take on their part of responsibility for the successful functioning of society.
In today’s changing world of social disruptions, there is a growing number of needs that the State cannot meet efficiently. Thus, in some countries, volunteering of older people may bring alternatives to the existing public structures.
Volunteering does not equate unpaid work. Rather it should be considered through the prism of leisure time.
Volunteering preserves social capital: knowledge, skills, experience, trust, relationships.
It requires “professionalisation,” i.e. education, research, standards, know-how, knowledge, skills, competencies.
Volunteering exists only when the others are aware of its distinctive existence.
Social exclusion which used to be related to economic precarisation has now been extended to other types of precarisation (relational precarisation) therefore education and volunteering seem to be the best strategy for the inclusion of socially deprived groups.
More about “Keep going, reach goals, get an award: empowering senior volunteerism”, the GGA project https://gogetaward.eu/
Dr. Dušana Findeisen, now a head of the Institute for Research and Development of education within Slovenian Third Age University, Dušana Findeisen has been dealing with education of older people, education about older people, and education for local development in former Yugoslavia, Slovenia and in many European countries since 1984. In 1986 she co/established Slovenian Third Age University of which she was President for 15 years. She (co)- introduced a great number of nation-wide scientifically grounded innovations (a national network of older people acting as cultural mediators in public institutions, education for trainers in the field of education for later life, education for local development, etc.) For five years she was an AGE PLATFORM EUROPE expert in employment and education. At the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Philosophy she taught Socio-cultural animation and education for local development and other courses. She authored, co-authored more than 300 scientific and professional articles and she published five monographs.
