Jockey Club Age-friendly City: Live better, Love with care

Adding life to years

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Summary

In March to June 2017, Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust had supported Hong Kong Christian Service to carry out a community project on Age-friendly Housing and Social Inclusion. With reference to the Baseline Report (2016) under the Jockey Club Age-friendly City Project, there were difficulties of accessing reliable home repairing and modification services for seniors in Kwun Tong. It also stated that more opportunities for cross-generational interactions were expected in the district.

Thus, the Project was designed accordingly to:
1. equip seniors with the knowledge of home safety and age-friendly home design
2. facilitate the participation of seniors and to draw the concern of age-friendly home environment among the community
3. nurture the participation across generations and sectors in the community so as to make the impact more sustainable

As such, there were two major elements of the project:

Firstly, seniors were intensively trained to be ambassadors and later lobbied home repairing and modification service providers in the district. As a result, they agreed to provide age-friendly, in the sense of transparent, prompt, well-explained and discounted services to local seniors. Afterward, all these information had been consolidated into an information kit and distributed to local seniors.

Meanwhile, workshops had been held for design company, design/architect students from local colleges, together with seniors to share their views on ideal age-friendly home design. Ultimately, a few age-friendly models were demonstrated in a district showcase, to arouse public awareness on needs of seniors. The participating students gained more understanding and appreciation towards seniors. They agreed to apply such experience in their future career.

Key facts

Main target group: Both younger and older people (i.e. intergenerational)

Other target group(s): Local home repairing and modification service providers

Sector(s): Education, Housing, Information and communication, Long-term care, Social protection

Desired outcome for older people:
Build and maintain relationships

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Ageism
Accessibility
Ageing in place
Intergenerational activities
Inclusion
Participation

Contact details

Name: Owen Chow

Email address: ktdc_secretariat_gr@had.gov.hk

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Social or health care provider

Others involved in the project:

Research institution

How collaboration worked: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University was the collaborating institution in the project in the way of providing baseline measurement and expertise in stage of project design, and support in implementation and project evaluation.

Older people’s involvement: Older people were involved in the age-friendly practice at multiple or all stages

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: Yes

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Please share with us what you found in detail:
• For elder ambassadors, they earned confidence in ongoing connection with the community and contribution to others. • For local home maintenance shops, they changed attitude towards elders and agreed they could have their role in rewarding the community. • For students, they gained understanding and appreciation towards elders, which was rare before. • For community-dwelling elders, their immediate needs were fulfilled and empowered to keep voice out in the community. They also looked at the youngsters from a more positive perspective.

Looking back

Challenges:
Empowerment of elder ambassadors: they were afraid of lobbying local home maintenance shops on their own at the beginning of project, though they agreed at long-term benefit to them in the sense of self-efficacy and community network. Thus, intensive training and continuous support to the ambassadors were provided. Feedback sessions and closing ceremony also served as mutual support and recognition to them.