Page 2090 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 May 2013
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Landcare for Singles and they promoted it by saying, “If you are single and live in Canberra or nearby and are looking to meet new people or even looking for romance this is for you. Come and plant she-oaks.”
While the benefits being highlighted by Greening Australia are quite explicit in this case, the general premise holds true for all volunteering. There is a chance to form and build new friendships and contacts and relationships. Volunteering can provide an important way to combat social isolation for many in our community and is especially important for older people. With an ageing population and demand on existing health services, finding effective ways to prevent disease, illness and injury needs to be central to our planning.
As our population ages, volunteering has a double role to play. Many of our volunteers are older people who have retired from paid employment but still want to make a contribution or “give something back”, as people often say. We must remember that older Canberrans often have a great deal to offer as volunteers, a lifetime of experience that they can share with the community. Their work benefits the community twice. Firstly, there is the actual value of the work itself and, secondly, their involvement contributes to their own wellbeing by keeping them active and socially connected.
Active engagement in the community is shown to have benefits for seniors’ health and wellbeing. This is something that I have certainly noticed. If you take examples such as the Council on the Ageing and the University of the Third Age, people involved in those groups are so dynamic. Certainly, for the ACT government, and in my role as the Minister for Ageing, one of our key messages to older people is to be active in the community and think about the many ways you can be active in the community. I think there are a myriad of ways. Certainly the seniors expo is just one example where the number of organisations, activities and opportunities being promoted really are very extraordinary. It offers older people the chance to either reconnect with a skill they might have or perhaps to find a new skill later in life.
Older people, particularly those with mobility issues, are especially susceptible to becoming socially isolated. This can flow on to other areas of their lives. When people lose those connections with their community their health, both physical and mental, can be greatly impacted.
There are great programs which encourage and support older people to volunteer and address social isolation. For example, Communities@Work runs a number of programs to address these issues in the Weston Creek, Woden and Tuggeranong areas. Programs include a transport program run primarily by volunteers, seniors’ social groups, Supergrans, and, of course, the well known men’s sheds. They also provide community meals every Tuesday in the Tuggeranong community centre, predominantly run by seniors. With over 200 volunteers who give tirelessly to a great variety of programs, over 75 per cent of these volunteers are seniors who are extremely active in a range of areas. The Tuggeranong 55 Plus Club are a key group in the Tuggeranong area which provide volunteering and social opportunities for older people. They run a variety of programs including digital photography, bike riding, jazzercise and much more.
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