Since 2014, the Katowice City Council for Senior Citizens has been working to improve the quality of life for people aged 60 and over in the city. The Council’s work focuses on providing opinions on local legislation, but it also undertakes a range of other activities.
The Council’s activities include, amongst other things:
- close cooperation with the city authorities,
- monitoring the needs of older people,
- providing opinions and feedback on the city council’s policy on older people,
- the integration of older people through education, leisure and physical activity,
- prevention and the promotion of health programmes for older people,
- cooperation with the police and promoting the programme for the safety of older people.
Further information on the Senior Citizens’ Council’s regular activities can be found on the page dedicated to her. The Council also conducts Facebook fan page.
The Katowice City Senior Citizens„ Council and its members are active. That is why, on their own initiative, they get involved in city-wide campaigns and are keen to take part in various projects for senior councillors. As a result, members of the Katowice City Senior Citizens” Council took part in the MOST Association’s project entitled ‘Seniorze działaMY!’. In addition, the councillors are undertaking a range of initiatives to improve the quality of life for people aged 60 and over.
It’s already been done
In Katowice, there are a number of initiatives aimed at people aged 60 and over. Older people are actively involved in these activities and have considerable experience in this area. For example, a very interesting idea is the initiative known as the „block threes”, whose aim is to support neighbours aged 60 and over. The older people taking part in the project also appreciate the quality of the cooperation with Katowice City Council and the fact that it allocates funding to activities for older people. The city also carries out regular surveys to assess the needs of people aged 60 and over.
To do
According to feedback from those taking part in the project Senior citizens in Katowice are lonely. And, as is the case across the entire conurbation, the challenge lies in reaching out to long-lived people who live alone with proposals for activities. The problem is exacerbated by the lack of trust that people aged 60 and over have in strangers, and the lack of a coherent system and channels of communication with older people.. We have described this challenge in this text. In it, we proposed that carers of older people should act as intermediaries in the relationship between older people and volunteers. Another challenge is linked to the communication problem and the challenges of caring for people living alone. In Poland, there is no systematic support for carers of people who are dependent due to long-term illness. There are ideas for a support system, but they are time-consuming and costly.
Another challenge, in the view of Katowice’s senior citizens, is the ongoing There are too few meeting places for older people in the city. Senior citizens’ clubs should operate in every neighbourhood and should be open every day. Clubs should be funded from public funds, as people aged 60 and over are not wealthy and often cannot afford to take part in fee-paying activities. Furthermore, clubs should offer interesting activities that reflect current cultural and sporting trends. This form of support for people aged 60 and over is costly and will require us to seek external sources of funding.
However, Those involved in the project fear that even an attractive offer for the over-60s will not change the attitudes of some of the more passive and entitled members of this age group. These people will require different approaches to social and civic engagement, which calls for a comprehensive assessment of the needs of those not currently taking part in programmes for the over-60s.
The final area for improvement in the City of Katowice, which, in the view of those taking part in the project, can be changed quickly, is the length of administrative procedures.
The Katowice City Council for Senior Citizens assesses the opportunities and risks associated with pro-senior initiatives
Katowice’s senior councillors see a significant opportunity to improve the situation of older people in the city in networking and building partnerships, including support for external organisations. These include cooperatives, universities of the third age, non-governmental organisations and hospitals, which will be creating new places in geriatric wards. All these organisations can and should launch intergenerational volunteering initiatives, which has a significant impact on improving the quality of life of people aged 60 and over.
The exchange of best practice with other senior-friendly towns can also contribute to positive senior-friendly initiatives in the town, as well as improvements to government and local authority policy for people aged 60 and over. As the number of older people in the city grows, there is an opportunity to raising external funds, including from EU funds.
One of the threats to bringing about positive change is the ever-increasing number of people living into old age who face a variety of health issues. These people require regular support, including psychological care. Alongside the rise in the number of people requiring care, the declining number of volunteers, including older people, poses a significant threat.
In addition to demographic changes, the ongoing digitalisation of most aspects of our daily lives poses a significant threat to improving the quality of life for older people. Unfortunately, it is safe to assume that the digitalisation of public services, banking and shopping will continue. This trend can no longer be reversed. That is why the „Seniorze działaMY!” project is so important; within it, we have developed ideas to overcome these negative barriers to social participation for people aged 60 and over.
You can find the ideas developed by the project participants at this point.
About the project
The “Let’s Get Active, Seniors!” project” received funding under The „Aktywni+” Multi-Annual Programme for Older People for 2021–2025 – 2023 edition. The aim of the project was to inspire and encourage civic engagement amongst 40 older people within the framework of Seniors“ Councils by 31 December 2023. The project involved an innovative approach to civic education for current councillors and those seeking to establish such a Council in a town where one does not yet exist. An important aspect of the project was collaborative ”learning by doing’ and the exchange of experiences between activists from Zabrze, Mysłowice and Katowice.