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Summary

The Caritas Mok Cheung Sui Kun Community Centre organised the “Age-friendly Transportation and Community Design Workshop”. The programme was co-organised by the Central & Western District Council Working Group on Elderly Service, the Caritas Elderly Centre – Central District, and the Caritas Community Centre – Caine Road.

This programme invited 20 core members from the aforementioned centres and 60 older people from the broader community to participate. Three 3-hour workshops were organized focusing on age-friendly creative design thinking and a questionnaire on street safety was developed and distributed to participants. The workshop and questionnaire aimed to understand older peoples perspectives on safety street saftey, identifying their needs, and turning them into design specifications. A checklist on neighbourhood street safety was also be developed for the programme.

This programme included two parts:

Part1: As the “silent” electric car (e-car) and fast-running motorcycles were identified as a threat to older people, our design thinking workshop focused on helping older people to understand the e-car and co-create a pedestrian alert system using the latest technology. This system is a wearable device that would remind older people whenever an e-car or motorcycle is approaching them at high speed. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this system will be further tested in the future.

Part2: Older participants worked with the professional designers in mapping and creating a street safety blackspot map for the C&W District. We hoped this map could draw related the attention of stakeholders’ (e.g. district councillors, government officers, older people in the community, and private companies) and encourage adjustments to their workflows or stimulate the creation of products to accommodate older people’s needs in the future.

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Other target group(s): The general public

Sector(s): Transportation, Urban development

Other sector(s): N/A

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:
  • Inclusion
  • Participation

Contact details

Name:

Email address: cwdc_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:
  • Local authorities
  • Volunteers
  • Private sector
  • Research institution

How collaboration worked: The programme was one of the district-based programmes which has been initiated and funded by The Central and Western District Council with the support of the Central and Western District Council Working Group on Elderly Service. The programme was co-organised by the Caritas Elderly Centre – Central District, the Caritas Community Centre – Caine Road, and 中西區長者友善工作小組.

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:
Most of the participants (90%) agreed or strongly agreed that the programme increased social participation. Many of the participants (90%) were satisfied with the programmes and all participants (100%) indicated that they would recommend the programmes to others. Most (over 90%) agreed or strongly agreed that the activity improved their understanding of an age-friendly city, and that the information presented was useful, and the staff were accommodating and helpful.

Feedback:
In the workshop, the participants were actively engaged in sharing their challenges, expressing their views on the needs of signaling device(s), as well as developing potential solutions with professional designers. Their solutions covered both the pedestrians’ and car owners’ perspectives. One of the ideas was submitted to car manufacturers for installing specially-designed sensors. The sharing from the older participants has been truly insightful.

Expansion plans:
The project team aims to scale up the project in the near future after soliciting sufficient financial resources.

Looking back

Reflections:
In the Central & Western District, the central business district of Hong Kong, older people are typically living in aged residential buildings with poorly accessible facilities, lower than average family household size and have a strong desire to remain living independently as long as possible. In order to facilitate social participation, the physical living environment has to be enhanced or better maintained. A future project could focus on modifying older people’s homes to enhance their living quality and increase the time that older adults can remain in their homes.

Challenges:
Lack of digital literacy can exacerbate feelings of isolation and ageist beliefs. Older adults need training, support, and easy access helplines to help increase their comfort level and confidence in using digital technologies.