European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations

2012 is the European Year for Active Ageing and Soldarity between Generations, though unless you read something like the Society pages of the Guardian I’d be surprised if you were aware of the fact, as ‘Europe’ is such a toxic word for so much of the British media at least. But the concept behind this year is a good one: raising awareness of the contribution that older people make to society. It seeks to  encourage policymakers and relevant stakeholders to help create better oportunities for active ageing and interaction and understanding between the generations. Active Ageing basically means growing old while remaining healthy and well-occupied; the era in which people automatically retired at 60 or 65 is over — thanks partly to European laws. If people want to work longer, they can. And as the population gets ever more elderly, it is important that there are active 60 and 70-year-olds. The second half of the European Year’s focus is strengthening solidarity between generations; too often young people in a community don’t interact with older folk and vice versa, unlike in previous epochs. But that generation gap does not have to persist. Indeed, organisations such as Magic Me, in my home borough of Tower Hamlets, have for years been running projects that bring together schoolchildren and local residents of 60+, to get them to express themselves artistically. Last night Europe House, the European Commission and Parliament’s representation in London, hosted the opening night of an exhibition of some of the recent work done by Magic Me, which I previewed on the Commission’s culture website:  http://www.europe.org.uk/2012/10/23/magic-me/ . Magic Me’s Director, Susan Langford, and the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali, spoke about the impact this has in Tower Hamlets and it was heartening to see how well the schoolchildren and elderly who were present related to each other.