According to current demographic trends, it is estimated that, by 2031, 25% of the Spanish population will be over 65 years old. Therefore, after the increase in life expectancy, one of the current challenges is to improve healthy longevity. With more than a century of experience, the "la Caixa" Foundation's Senior Citizens program responds to the needs of this population group in a changing and increasingly heterogeneous environment.
The objective of the training courses is to promote the active participation of senior citizens and highlight their role in society, contributing to their empowerment so that they can carry out their own personal project with which they enjoy a life with purpose and meaning. The workshops and activities are developed in five lines of action with which it is intended to holistically address their needs, interests, and concerns, favoring their physical and emotional well-being.
On the one hand, they include the line of maintaining and improving physical health and preventing frailty, with workshops to promote physical health, well-being, and the prevention of frailty, designed to comprehensively stimulate the sensory, motor, and cognitive areas so that senior citizens remain active and have healthy lifestyle habits, and to contribute to improving their quality of life.
On the other hand, they have the line of promoting personal development, with activities to encourage the growth capacity of senior citizens, reflection, and empowerment to lead the life they want in accordance with their values.
The foundation also works on a line of improving digital skills, with workshops to provide the necessary tools and resources so that senior citizens can navigate this new digital scenario and feel included.
In addition, it has the line of social and community participation, with solidarity actions in which older people can get involved by transmitting and sharing their experience or helping the social integration of the most vulnerable groups. The fifth line is creativity and reflection, with workshops and initiatives aimed at fostering imagination, as well as favoring the search for sensitivity and awareness of personal skills to give meaning to the person's reality, ranging from the newly launched workshops Poetic Writing, Creative Writing, Journalistic Writing and Interpretation, and Podcast Creation.
As a novelty, for this upcoming academic year, the foundation will promote the workshop Ageism: how to detect and prevent it, which aims to provide older people with tools so that they can face situations of ageism and, in turn, be active agents in carrying out awareness actions in their community environment through volunteering. One in three people in Europe is a victim, at one time or another, of some discrimination related to their age. For this reason, the initiative promotes awareness of this phenomenon and subsequent action. Among the community actions carried out, intergenerational ones acquire special relevance.
"All the activities we promote aim for older people to acquire new knowledge, recognize their existing skills and discover new ones to enhance them. To achieve this, in the program we develop innovative and rigorous content that promotes health, relationships, well-being, personal development and a full life, in addition to fostering social participation," highlights David Velasco, director of the Elderly People's Program of the La Caixa Foundation.
With the aim of reaching all people inclusively and thus reducing the digital divide, the La Caixa Foundation makes a series of virtual workshops available. Since their inception, more than 10,000 elderly people from all over Spain have enrolled in these workshops, either with a computer at home or in the computer rooms of senior centers. According to a survey conducted among those enrolled, more than 94% would recommend these courses to other users.
The self-training courses address topics such as healthy eating, exercise, wellness routines, and the use of technological applications. They are aimed at all those who wish to continue adding life experiences at their own pace.
Open Classroom Mini-workshops
In addition, following the line of digitalization, the program carries out the Open Classroom mini-workshops, with specific training aimed at elderly volunteers who provide digital support in the Open Classroom spaces of senior centers. They are offered the necessary knowledge and resources so that volunteers can accompany people who attend these spaces and teach them how to use the most popular digital applications and perform the most common tasks online.
A look towards the future
With more than a century of experience, the Senior Citizens program of the La Caixa Foundation has as its strategic purpose to respond to the current challenges associated with the stage of old age. Its current focus is on building models that prioritize being over doing, betting on the development of a personal life project. The idea is to accompany and facilitate a new vital stage that is worth living with awareness, responsibility, and meaning, enjoying the present and actively contributing to society. In this context, combating isolation and loneliness by promoting mutual support bonds, self-care, and the care of those around us becomes especially important.
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