To mark its 75th anniversary in 2020, the United Nations is conducting the biggest-ever global conversation on the role of global cooperation in building the future we want. From January through to October 2020, the UN75 campaign will initiate dialogues in many settings – from classrooms to boardrooms, and from village halls to parliaments - to listen to the hopes and fears of as many people as possible, to learn from their ideas and experiences about how to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and to leave no one behind.

 

Take 5 minutes, choose from 13 languages, and have your say here  (By the way, we’re unhappy about the age categories! The oldest is 61+ with no differentiation between 61 and 100+!).

 

You can join the conversation and access an excellent toolkit here.

 

Watch this video (click on image) to see good reasons for participating…

The year 2022 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA) and already countries and NGOs are preparing for the 4^th United Nations review leading up to this anniversary. MIPAA was an international response to the opportunities and challenges of the world’s ageing population, and aims to develop a society for all ages. It provides a policy framework and a comprehensive action plan for governments and civil society. If you want an agreeable refresher on progress since 2010 and the way ahead, have a look at A Society for All Ages report published by BAGSO, Germany’s national association of senior citizen’s organizations.

 

Seven civil society organizations have created the Great Lakes Ageing Network (GLAN) to work together and share their strengths and experiences with and for older people in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). French will be the working language.

 

The associations are L.V.V., INIREC and SEDI from the DRC; ADDPA, FASPAO and ASABA from Burundi; and the Nsindagiza Organization from Rwanda. Mr Elie Mugabowishema, founder and president of the Nsindagiza, is in charge of communications and networking.

An independent researcher/writer and entrepreneur based in Panama, Ilene Little has spent close to 10 years developing a company named Traveling4Health & Retirement.  She is focused on interviewing primarily Baby Boomers and industry-specific experts.  Based on over 800 documented interviews, she published How to Plan a Successful Medical Tourism Trip (Amazon).  She is also the exclusive medical travel contributor to the book 65 Things To Do When You Retire by Mark Evan Chimsky and a contributing reviewer of Saving Private Healthcare by Michael Kalthoff. A former newspaper columnist, she hosts a weekly radio show on the Overseas Radio Network. Currently, she is content editor on the Botched No More Campaign of IMTCC and a contract writer for Live and Invest Overseas.

Avinash Lakare of Pune, Maharashtra State, India, is a gerontologist who retired in 1997 from his career as an electrical engineer in quality assurance. He then studied gerontology including a course on social gerontology at the International Institute on Aging, UN-Malta (EU) with a UN Scholarship. Today, he is involved in fostering skills development, learning and working for and with the 50-plus community in his region. He is chairman of the ARIR commission of the All India Senior Citizen's Confederation (AISCCON); advisory member of the International Longevity Center-India; president of networking for the Federation of Senior Citizens of Maharashtra; honorary consultant for Janaseva Foundation, Pune; executive committee member the Indian Society - University of Third Age (IS-U3A). “What is of capital importance to me is living with purpose”, he says.

“Being old is part of the life course. We all have the right to security, health and individual development no matter what stage in life we are at.”  Margaret Young, founder Ageknowble, and our Pass It On Network liaison in Vancouver, Canada, explores the background for a UN convention protecting rights for older persons.  In this blog, Margaret also invites you to take a moment to consider what you can do in your country, town or neighborhood to make human rights for older persons a reality. Read here.

This is one of the new areas for an older people’s human rights convention that will be discussed at the 11th session of the UN’s Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing in New York from 6-9 April 2020. This IFA-GAROP webinar explores some of the key issues and barriers related to access to justice.
Webinar Recording | Presentation Slides

Ireland is the first country in the world to become fully affiliated with the World Health Organization’s Global Network of Age Friendly Cities & Communities. Each of the 31 sites in Ireland has an Age Friendly strategy and is committed to supporting older people as they age, addressing their expressed concerns. The goal is to make Ireland a great place in which to grow old.

The Pass It On Network has profound respect for Creative Commons (CC), dedicated to the idea that knowledge should be free and open. Since 2002, CC licenses have been the digital keys to unlocking and sharing over 1.6 billion works of art, rare books, scientific research, textbooks, 3-D scans, and more.  CC is inviting individuals and institutions to join the  CC Global Network, with chapters in 43 countries dedicated to growing the Commons movement and continuing to optimize free and open tools such as CC Search access to openly licensed photos, GIFs, and illustrations

The iOme Challenge is an essay competition operated by WISER that encourages younger generations to challenge the status quo on retirement and propose policy recommendations. There’s nothing new in an essay competition as such, what is interesting, however, is getting young people to think about their life course in a world where retirement is morphing into something quite different from the traditional conception that held firm till the beginning of the century. Each year, student teams from across the USA respond to the iOme Challenge Question with a 5,000-word essay. Winners share a $5,000 prize and will present their essay at a June forum in Washington, DC. The deadline for submissions is April 26, 2020.

Sustainability is everyone’s concern. Read about the history of food storage and what you can do in your own kitchen.

See what AARP International, OECD and the World Economic Forum are developing. Explore this incredibly rich site.  You will find worksheets, a video series to watch, imaginative infographics that sum up the essentials, case studies, and much more.

The infographic shows that the population of age 65+ will have grown 4 times the rate of the overall global population between 2015 and 2030. Five generations will be working side by side to meet the productivity needs of the Longevity Economy.

Working Nation has initiated a learning collaborative that seeks to engage 50 employers in identifying and using multigenerational, inclusive workforce practices. It is an invitation to imagine what it means to earn and learn throughout the life span. The site is a mine of information and videos like this one.

A French task force charged by the government to examine and propose solutions for supporting seniors in the workplace reported  their conclusions in January. The overall understanding is that keeping experienced workers employed is a complex social challenge.  Workplace traditions shaped over a very long period of time include counter-productive public policies that haven't adapted to demographic and sociological changes. Needed changes cannot be made overnight. See full report to the French Government

The Diversity Council Australia challenges everyone to compare eight prevalent myths about ageing in the workplace with proven reality in this summary provided to give the facts in the rising debate about the place of seniors in the workplace.

The Right to Work and Access to the Labour Market is one of the new priority areas of human rights for older persons that will be discussed at the 11th session of the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing (OEWGA) in New York City from 6-9 April 2020. This IFA/GAROP webinar explored some of the related issues that came up in Chilean national discussions. View webinar recording here.

 

You might find it useful to take advantage of the experience garnered by the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER). Since 1998, the U.S. government has awarded WISER a competitive grant to manage the National Resource Center on Women and Retirement Planning. View fact sheets here.

Peter DuToit, the South African expert on Future Skills and Pass It On’s advisor on Digital Literacy, has drawn our attention to recent research from NATO Strategic Communications that highlights how social media platforms like Facebook are being used to spread misinformation at frightening levels.  This is a massive problem.  Social Media Manipulation is big business. Peter suggests that reading the full NATO report will equip you with the necessary knowledge to navigate Facebook with the necessary caution.   He says that Information Literacy is a critical skill and offers 10 tips to spot false stories and news that you can find on this short download.

Here are two lively international newsletters for globetrotting to the Asia Pacific region with ACAP and around the world with U3A. (click on below images to view newsletters)

The theme this year is AI for Lifelong Learning. At least three Pass It On Network liaisons will be attending this event in Paris to learn more about Artificial Intelligence for Inclusion. They will include: Val Wood-Geiger, Learn with Grandma founder and liaison from Wales; Sileye Gorbal Sy, L’Education pour Tous and liaison from Senegal; and Moira Allan, Pass It On’s International Coordinator from Paris.

Make yourself a cup of tea and connect for an “elder hour” of casual discussion about climate change. We can make new friends across the country and learn ways to engage from each other.  Second Tuesday of the month 6:00 PM Eastern | 3:00 PM Pacific. Signup for March 10 here.

The 1st International Health Science Conference at Thammasat University (TU) in Thailand, March 16-18 will be attended by several members of ACAP (Asia Pacific Coalition on Positive Ageing), including Kathryn Braun, President. Registration is http://www.med.tu.ac.th/. Please coordinate with Kathryn Braun.

A delegation of 10 Pass It On Network liaisons will be attending the 11TH session. Next month’s newsletter will highlight the side event on “Lifelong Learning and Earning” that will be convened by the Pass It On Network.

Youth and their allies are inviting you to join them to usher in a decade of transformative climate action. Elders Climate Action is working hard with the youth to prepare the 50th anniversary celebration of Earth Day. On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — took to the streets to demand a new way forward for our planet.  Were you there?

Common’Age, a global association of age-related organizations in the 52 countries of the Commonwealth, will hold its meeting in Kigali on June 22 at the same time as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting from June 20-25. Margie van Zyl Chapman, a founding member and Pass It On Network’s liaison in South Africa, will be running a workshop. The Africa Chapter, representing 17 commonwealth nations, will play a big part in the proceedings.