On Thursday 5th October, TDC showed a short film and hosted a morning of celebration, conversation and cake at the Brighthelm centre as part of the Brighton & Hove Older People’s Festival 2017.
We wanted to recognise and celebrate the part that Older People play in supporting their communities – from running food banks, to volunteering at their local lunch club or community café; from chairing their local Residents’ Association to being part of a Park ‘Friends of’ group; from supporting members of black and minority ethnic groups to championing the cause of the LGBTQ+ community. And much more besides…
Older people from across the city came together to meet each other, chat, to enjoy coffee and cake and to take part in a discussion with the Mayor of Brighton & Hove, Councillor Mo Marsh, about the contribution older people make to the city. Attendees watched a short film produced by our community development workers which featured many over 50s talking about how they are making a positive difference in their communities and what they, in return, get back from their volunteering. TDC Project manager Lyndsay Macadam said of the film ”The theme of this year’s Older People’s Festival is about recognising the talents and contributions of older people and we thought it would be fantastic to capture on film some of the older people in our communities talking about the work they do and to ask them why they do it.”
After the event, Steve Andrews, our Community Participation Worker with Older People, said “It was a truly inclusive occasion with lots of goodwill in the room. It was great to see older members of the BME community present, and people who hadn’t been to citywide events before. There was an element of fun but also some serious engagement in the groupwork.”
Brighton & Hove Older People’s Festival is an annual two week celebration inspired by the UN’s International Older People’s day which is held on 1st October each year. This year’s festival took place between 25th September and 8th October and saw hundreds of older people from Brighton & Hove taking part in events across the city.
The film “Supporting our communities” can be found on the TDC youtube channel or you can watch it right here!
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A special area of our work at TDC is around supporting older people themselves to develop groups and activities based on their needs and developing their capacity as volunteers. Our Community Participation Workers with Older People work citywide and recent work has involved building the Dementia Action Alliance with partners across the city and helping to train people and organisations to become more dementia friendly.
Read more about our work with older people.