Age-friendly Belfast
We are very excited to launch our third Age Friendly Belfast Plan, this time it is for 4 years to match The Belfast Agenda
Since 2014, we’ve been working with older people and organisations throughout Belfast to help people aged 60+ live life to the full.
An Age-friendly City is an inclusive and accessible urban environment that promotes active ageing and designs its structures and services to meet the needs of older people with a wide range of abilities.
There is a Healthy Ageing Strategic Partnership across the city that lead this work. This has included events such as tea dances, strength and balance classes, volunteer awards, walks in the park, positive ageing month in October as well as more influencing changes in policy, planning and working in local neighbourhoods to make them more age friendly and dementia friendly.
We have talked to older people all over the city about what will be important for the next three years and the following areas have been highlighted as main themes of our plan:
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- Infrastructure, helping people to get out and about: – ensuring age friendly design, consultation with older people in new developments and that amenities and services are accessible.
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- Social inclusion, promoting connections:- It’s important to meet up with other people and get involved, there are various programmes all over the city supporting this with events, course, groups and volunteering opportunities
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- Health and wellbeing: – We know that it can be difficult for older people to be active in order to stay fit and healthy. We also know that accessing health services and appointments can be a real challenge for people, particularly in the last couple of years.
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- Financial security and supporting people to manage the increasing costs of living: This means more employment opportunities, better access to benefits and entitlements and better protection from frauds or scams. We also know that the rising cost of living is affecting an increasing amount of older people across the city.