Good Practices

The University of the Third Age is a programme that started on 2019 in Athens which  promotes and enables active ageing. Through lifelong learning and digital education, the  people aged 65+ are able to come together and socialize, learn new knowledge and skills,  and overall, improve their quality of life and physical and mental health. The main courses  are European History, Greek Philosophy, Computers, Drama, Creative Writing, English  language, Cosmology, and Intergenerational Storytelling.

KAPIs started as a significant social policy practice in order to support the ageing population.  Nowadays, in Greece, every municipality is responsible for at least one KAPI where the elderly can participate in activities such as painting, regular  exercise, participation in trips e.g. visiting museums, or medical and social care e.g.  physiotherapy and psychological support. KAPIs aim to achieve multiple goals such as the  prevention of biological, psychological, and social problems of the elderly in order to remain  autonomous, equal, and active members of society.

This good practice is a training course with the following objectives: to promote an intergenerational  learning methodology, to foster the digital alphabetisation of the over 60 years-old elderly  people in Italy and to encourage socialisation and interaction between students and the  elderly.  

The project is based on a series of training courses implemented in various Italian Regions in the South of Italy. Young students lead these courses and the participants are elderly people  at risk of social exclusion. The young students are in charge to transmit knowledge and  practical information about technological devices to the elderly. 

The project consists of a wide range of activities aiming to let the elderly people interact and  socialise. Most of these activities aim to transfer theoretical knowledge on cooking styles as well as raise awareness to the importance of healthy lifestyles, especially, when it comes to fragile citizens. Many activities include practical exercises in which the elderly can learn “on  the field” new notions and techniques in a way that their overall experience is fun and  fruitful. 

In the Italian region of Emilia Romagna, the Day Centres are used to organising small theatre  performances, choirs, readings of short stories and poems on the occasion of the Italian  festivities. The good practice consisted of transferring this set of consolidated knowledge  and skills of the elderly into an initiative aiming to provide relief and joy to hospitalised  children.  

Each involved Day Centre for elderly people chooses a fairy tale and the elderly go to S. Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, bringing all the prepared  equipment, and recite the fairy tales for the hospitalised children.

This is an intergenerational practice in which students and elderly people work together in  small groups to represent through arts personal stories of the elderly related with the  period of the Second World War. 

This good practice is held in very typical villages of the interior of Portugal. Some of those  villages are almost abandoned. The younger people left, and the only people living there are seniors. In eight of those villages the elderly tell stories to those who visit them. Their profiles were included in a website with the support of the City Hall and Parish Councils.

This good practice aims at the promotion of the typical villages of the interior of Portugal  through the art of telling stories and tales from the regions. Some of those villages are almost abandoned since the younger generations had to seek for jobs and opportunities in  other geographical locations. The younger people left, and the only people living there are  seniors.  

The approach of the project consisted in going village by village reaching the elderly and  asking them to share stories close to a fireplace and accompanied with the most genuine  food from the region. 

This programme was created to unify all the Senior Universities of the country, so that they share good practices among them. RUTIS promotes studies about the elderly population to understand their needs and how the Social Assistance programmes are working. The  recognition of the relevance of the elderly volunteers gained some importance in the last  years as a way to encourage the social inclusion of the seniors.

This programme, based on an intergenerational perspective, aims to combat the loneliness and  isolation of the seniors. To do so, the programme houses young university students in senior  citizens’ residences in the Municipality of Porto, that, with a symbolic contribution in goods  or food, may contribute to the increasing expenses in water, electricity, and gas.

Artesaneando (handcrafting) pursues participation, improvements, and integration of old  people living in rural áreas. Through this initiative, it is also expected to recover the knowledge and the skills  related to ancient handcrafting and traditions.

This is a national programme that started in 1993. The project created mobile libraries, through which older people can  pass their knowledge and experience to the younger generations. Older people bring their cultural and historical-artistic knowledge to children and young students, as well as to older  people and other groups that are excluded from the possibility to take benefits of cultural  pleasure.

This good practice was a European project aiming to prevent early school leaving in adolescents and, at the same time, enabling a path for active aging by making elderly people  able to provide an important social contribution.  

The initiative consisted of training elderly people to become mentors of teenagers, serving  them as a guide, model, and providing them support.