We Build Age-friendly City in Wan Chai Together

Status: Completed

Evaluated

Wan Chai District China

Print this page City population: 15090024% over 60Practice started in 2018

Summary

The St. James’ Settlement Wanchai District Elderly Community Centre with support from the Jockey Club Age-friendly City Project organized the Age Friendly City programme to improve age-friendliness in outdoor spaces and buildings as well as facilitate social participation, and communication and information within the district. In collaboration with the District Council and local care centres, the programme provided older adults with the opportunity to share their opinions about outdoor spaces and buildings in Wan Chai district, and express these views through social media.

The programme had two components. The first part included age-friendly city ambassador training to increase the knowledge and awareness of age-friendly outdoor spaces through community auditing and micro-film production. Led by a social worker, participants visited various public spaces in the district including Lee Tung Street, Tai Fat Hau park, Li Chit Garden, open spaces in Canal Road West bus station, and the roof top of The Pawn. Participants also used photos and videos to document the outdoor spaces that concerned them during the community audit. All of these photos and videos were then used to produce a micro-film for a community screening event. This was followed up with a sharing session, participants shared their concerns and made suggestions for improvement to the public, including representatives of the District Council. This training empowered older people to voice their opinions and concerns to relevant stakeholders in the district.

The second part of the programme included a smartphone and tablet training. This training equipped older people with the skill to obtain community and age-friendly related information through different on-line platforms

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Other target group(s): The general public

Sector(s): Information and communication

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Accessibility
Technologies

Contact details

Name: Kwok-wai, Sabina KOO

Email address: sabinakoo.kkw@gmail.com

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
Research institution

How collaboration worked: The programme was one of the district-based programmes under the Jockey Club Age-friendly City Project, which has been initiated and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The programme was co-organized by the Community Building and Housing Affairs Committee of the Wan Chai District Council, St James’ Settlement Wanchai District Elderly Community Centre, Wun Sha Elderly Centre, HUBBA Lab-Mr. & Mrs. S. H. Wong Elderly Adventure- based Training Centre, Lok Sin Tong Chan Lai Jeong Kiu Neighbourhood Elderly Centre, HK Christian Mutual Improvement Soc. Chuang Chung Wen Social Centre for the Elderly, and Tin Ka Ping Causeway Bay Elderly and Community Continuing Education Centre. The programme was evaluated by Sau Po Centre on Ageing, University of Hong Kong.

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

Details on older people’s involvement: Older adults were target participants of the programme. Some older adults participated in the public space auditing and spoke in the sharing session, while others participated in the IT training.

Moving forward

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

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Feedback:
Feedback from the primary target group: – Generally, they felt the activities improved their understanding of age-friendly cities, especially in the outdoor spaces and buildings domain, as they had an opportunity to conduct a community audit in the district. They were motivated to participate in future activities promoting the concept of age-friendly cities and communities. – Participants reported that they thought micro-film was a good medium to convey age-friendly messages and deliver their opinions. – The programme provided a platform for older participants to share their views with the public and key stakeholders, but they felt their feedback had limited influence on the local government.

Expansion plans:
This programme recruited some Age-friendly ambassadors who had the knowledge to promote age-friendly cities in the future and express their opinions on ageing-related issues.

Looking back

Reflections:
I believed the age friendly concept should be a concern to all the community members, not only older individuals. Awareness of the concept of age friendly is just starting, and needs to be shared with the community. If the project can run at least one year, the ambassadors can share the concepts with other older people, primary or secondary school students, and even district Council members.

Challenges:
Only four months were allocated for this project, as such exploring age-friendly in depth was difficult. Therefore, we chose to promote the concept in-depth with the ambassadors. We have meeting/training/site visits almost every week, ambassadors will also use whatsapp to communicate and share their observations on age-friendly practices in their daily life (ex. different styles of chairs in bus stop, etc…).