Senior Citizen Week Re-Branded as Active Ageing Festival

Channel NewsAsia

Singapore

October 10, 2007

The Council for Third Age has re-branded Senior Citizen Week to Active Ageing Festival to show how things can be different when one grows older. 

Rock-climbing may seem like an activity for the young and stout-hearted, but it will be one of the many unconventional activities – not typically associated with older persons – at the Active Ageing Carnival that will be held on 18 November. 

The carnival is one of three major events that the Council is organising. 

The Council is tying up with retail and F&B outlets to make Grandparents Day on 25 November as popular as Father's Day and Mother's Day. 

There will also be an Active Agers Award with five winners who will be the ambassadors for the 'new old'. 

To show that the elderly should not be restricted to certain activities and certain places, the Active Agers Award is going to take place at a hip, new club in Clarke Quay. 

The Council hopes to get a group of 5,000 to 7,000 baby boomers, who are just starting to get old, to lead the active ageing movement. 

Gerard Ee, chairman of the Council for Third Age, said: "Infect them first and hopefully, there is a contagion effect and they would say, 'Yes! That is the way to live life!'. And they will influence their family members and friends so that the future old have a benchmark and a model of hope, of excitement, of meaning to follow." 

On the flip side, the Council also wants to help avoid or minimise any feelings of helplessness among older people by having year-long activities to build up their social networks. 

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