Intergenerational dialogue

A total of seven awards were presented for initiatives undertaken under the auspices of the 2012 European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations at a ceremony held in Brussels on 13 November 2012.

One of the winning projects, “Life long living”, was submitted by the Municipality of Fredericia, in Denmark, under the category of “Towards age-friendly environments”.  It aims at shifting society’s vision of the elderly as ‘helpless patients’ to self-reliant citizens with valuable resources.

The project, introduced by Angelika Poth-Mögele, director of policy at the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), looks at the individual’s resources and provides adapted rehabilitation training to help them independently perform their daily tasks.  It has thus far helped reduced the need for and cost of municipal assistance services by €70 000 per month.  The municipality aims to have 10% of elderly citizens concerned to become completely self-reliant and 40% to become partially self-reliant.

Over 1 300 projects were submitted from all over Europe for the 2012 European Year awards, which reflect three different dimensions of the active ageing approach: employment, social participation and independent living.

List of all the project winners