Innovation: Age Awareness and Advocacy of older people
Bulgaria
AAI Domains:
Participation in society (voluntary activity, social connectedness)
Independent, healthy and secure living (care to older adults, care to children, access to health services, financial security, lifelong learning)
Older people can face social exclusion and discrimination in many societies but they also represent a potential force for social change if they can be mobilised. This highlights the diversity of life chances that older people have to live a good life with poorer and older old people the most likely to be disadvantaged whereas there are growing numbers of more affluent younger older people who have the potential to bring about social change. The Active Ageing Index for 2014 places Bulgaria in 22nd place in the EU 28 with particularly low rankings for participation in society and independent living domains indicating that there is considerable scope for improvement in social conditions for older people and active ageing.
An innovative intervention to improve the situation of older people now and in the future was the Age Advocacy and Awareness Project (AAAP) implemented by the Bulgarian Red Cross Society with financial assistance and support from the Swiss Red Cross. It started in 2003 in 10 regions of Bulgaria with the aims of encouraging participation of older people in defining and finding solutions to the issues that they faced in their daily lives through actively participating in the process.
The AAAP involved over 1500 older people through the establishment of self-help groups, the training of older people (defined as being over the age of 60) and younger people as advocates in order to raise public awareness of the challenges that older people faced in Bulgarian society. This participatory approach was genuinely innovative in the Bulgarian context and created a number of self-help groups and advocates who continued to press for changes to better meet the needs of older people now and to prepare for the future through active and healthy ageing.
A range of issues affecting older people including public transport, social services and loneliness were raised with municipalities across the regions and a range of activities were undertaken with the underlying purpose of empowering older people. For example, home visits to socially isolated older people by older volunteers were organised in several municipalities in order to address social isolation and loneliness.
Older people were mobilised to be active participants in local food banks, there were some improvements in access to specialist medics for older people in poor health, 54 older volunteers engaged in inter-generational activities with 139 children in six orphanages as part of a Grandma and Grandpa for the Children project and there were visits to nursing homes to support older people with dementia.
The original project ran up until 2009 but was revived by further funding for the 2011–14 period and expanded to two further regions of Gabrovo and Yambol as well as the original ten areas. This revival can be seen as testimony to the achievements of the first iteration of the project and the legacy of self-help groups and trained advocates in making the case for older people and active and healthy ageing.
In relation to active ageing, the Age Awareness and Advocacy Project is likely to have positive effects in relation to promoting voluntary activities, providing care to children and older adults as well as encouraging political participation. It also involved elements of improving access to health services and building social connectedness and it is entirely plausible that making older people more aware of their rights contributed to increasing their level of financial security through access to any additional benefits and pensions.
The training of advocates improved lifelong learning for a group of participants and the ethos of the project was to work with older people in a participatory and empowering fashion embodies the spirit of social innovation for active and healthy ageing.