National Age Friendly Alliance Report 2018

National Age Friendly Alliance 11th/ 12th April 2018

Monaghan

Attending the Age Friendly Alliance Awards was a very good experience as to the way other Councils approach Age Friendly. I would like to thank Waterford City and County Council for sponsoring my attendance at this event and to Kevin Moynihan for arranging my attendance. The purpose of the Alliance was explained in the opening speeches which is to make every County in Ireland a better place to grow old. This will be achieved by working with local Councils signed up to Age Friendly Ireland. Waterford is some way behind other Age Friendly Alliances as other areas are up and running six/seven years as Waterford is only established two /three years.

Going forward I feel we have to recruit more representatives to achieve our goals. We need to meet with all organisations linked in any way to older /younger people. We need to bring all ages on board so the young can help the older residents and older residents help our young residents.

What struck me from the Awards ceremony, Waterford actually has some of the Activities up for awards in the different categories running in some areas. e.g. Transition year Students teaching computers skype etc. to our older citizens at St Brigid’s. We also have Golden Years Festival, Assai House and all the Active Retired Associations. There are a number of other activities which come under the different categories.

We need to reach out to all organisations as there are a number of areas we can offer advice to our senior citizens. The area of Security at home was one of the awards the Garda visiting homes and also ways to better heat our homes the list goes on.

The main thing I took away from the ceremony is that small things mean a lot to our senior citizens. We need to take small steps and expand our representatives as the reps cannot work alone.

We need to set up information meetings with all organisations to show our support and advise on activities to engage with our senior citizens. Perhaps we can use some of the Grant Richard has applied for in the area of information meetings. We can work within our Thematic areas to promote interaction with all senior Citizens groups.

Noreen McGrath

15th April 2018