Minutes
of Fringe Meeting at 16th EGP- Council in Copenhagen
11. May 2012
Place: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Philip de Langes Alle´ 10
Time: 14.00 – 16.00 h
Participants: 18 – see list
Theme: Age Friendly Cities in Europe
- Introduction and welcome of the participants
and guest speaker Jean Lambert and Pierre Hemon by Birgit Meinhard-Schiebel.
Some words of introduction the theme was spoken by Marije Cornelissen from the Netherlands (Vice President of the Greens/EFA Group)
- Introduction of the theme in the EU-Year of Active Ageing
“Age Friendly Cities” by Jean Lambert (MEP) from London
She gave us an interesting introduction of the subject.
She reported about the
back ground of WHO (World Health Organisation) concept and the Dublin
Resolution. She told us that the Young Greens will do the project of “Age Friendly Cities”. Might be that they find also barriers for their generation.
First of all she mentioned that in some European countries social issues decreases.
She explained that there has to be a strategy for an EU-age friendly network and environment, because more and more people are living in cities with an increasing ageing population. People become older and older than in the past. Cities and communities have to be age friendly. The costs can be held low with health prevention. The longer the elderly stay active and healthy, the lower are the costs for the society.
In her project in London she worked together with several different groups with older members. They run a positive and negative list about environment, and also people who are engaged in care of elderly, not only in the family, made a list to find out what they need. Older people who live alone are a problem.
A city with a perfect age friendly environment is New York.
London is an example for working with the WHO concept. There they came up with a list
in which they noticed all the barriers and which places are useful for all generations and communities too.
People are more interested in the questions of places which are shared by young and old. Also an age friendly neighbourhood is important for good living.
Jean Lamberts lecture concerned all points of the WHO concept you will find in Top. 6.
- Pierre Hemon, the deputy mayor of the French city Lyon became a member of the WHO Global Network of Age Friendly Cities in September 2010
He is in charge of the elderly in Lyon. He gave a presentation of his experiences putting the theory of WHO concept into practice and analyst the results. In partnership with a university he realizes the project.
Jocelyne Le Boulicaut gave a short introduction and stated that the project is a long term policy which must be developed more. She was an excellent translator for Pierre Hemon from French to English.
Pierre Hemon reported:
In a three year project and
in 9 districts of Lyon elderly people answered the questions given by the WHO questionnaire . 1/5 of the city population the number of 90 000 people, aged over 60, took part.
In his power point presentation Pierre Hemon showed in detail the three steps in his project:
1. Step: Development of an assessment of the age friendliness of the city
–findings and recommendations
2. Step Implementation of a 3-4 year city-wide action plan based on the findings of this assessment and identification of indicators to monitor progress
3. Step Progress evaluation
In the end he gave the analysis of the results.
It was a good example how it could work in practice.
You can find information under gnafcc@who.int or www.who.int/aging
After the power point presentation there was a lively discussion with the participants with
questions and examples.
- We figure out the most important points
This we will do in a next step.
- The WHO-Questionnaire
CD`s with the WHO questionnaire in English, French and Spain
were distributed by Birgit Meinhard-Schiebel to the participants and links with relevant pages to inform oneself.
The participants now are able to work with this material and were asked to interview elderly in their home town to contribute to age friendly cities.
Here you can find the topics of
Global Age-Friendly Cities:
questions about
1. outdoor spaces and buildings
2. transportation
3. housing
4. social participation
5. respect and social inclusion
6. civic participation and employment
7. communication and information, and
8. community support and health service
- Discussion how to present the results and when
Because of lack of time it did not happen. But in next steps we will work it out.
