In Engage Across Generations, Tim Carpenter, founder and executive director of
EngAGE, chairs a student forum to explore the challenges posed for young people in
Hong Kong and China by the demographic transition towards an ageing society, by
migration, changes in family structures and patterns of socialization, and by a new
global economics. Student participants, many of whom are involved in student-led
humanitarian projects in China, reflect on the importance – and urgency – of social
integration and the need for building a new intergenerational partnership,
underpinned by reciprocal care, support, and the exchange of resources.
Social Entrepreneurship for Health: Creative Aging explores how business may drive social change in ways that deliver tangible benefits to the health of society.
The world’s population is aging on an unprecedented scale, raising fundamental social, cultural, economic, and political issues. Today, in many countries around the world, there is a new focus on prioritizing aging in healthcare and on end-of-life issues.
In many ways, Hong Kong is exemplary of an aging and increasingly urban global environment, with life expectancy in the HKSAR the longest in the world for men and the second longest for women. As in many countries, there is urgent debate in Hong Kong about the needs of the aging population, which remains under- resourced, in part as a result of constraints on state funding. At the same time, evidence suggests that health outcomes and the experience of aging vary greatly from setting to setting, determined by the arrangements of healthcare systems, social factors, and cultural contexts.
Against this backdrop, Creative Aging calls for fresh thinking about aging, and considers how social enterprises that have enabled new approaches to promoting creative and healthy aging in one setting may be transferred successfully to another. Participants reflect on ways of building innovative and sustainable social businesses, which contribute to the betterment of an aging society, addressing such themes as: community participation, the importance of ‘place’ in aging, intergenerational solidarity, and creative aging.
Participants
Tim Carpenter, founder of the California-based, non-profit EngAGE, advocates a whole-person approach to creative and healthy aging in which seniors are provided with opportunities to engage with the community through the arts. He will share his experience at EngAGE and his efforts on revitalizing and transforming the conventional idea of aging through an integrated program of creative intervention.
Patrick Cheung, founder of Dialogue in the Dark Hong Kong and Chairman of the Hong Kong Social Entrepreneurship Forum, will talk on sustainability of elderly healthcare services, with a particular focus on aging in place. In 2012, he co-founded the Jade Club, an organization with a mission to provide high-quality, affordable and self-sustainable community and home elderly care service through civic participation and innovative operational models.
Dr. Anna Hui, a researcher at the City University of Hong Kong, will discuss creativity in aging populations. She is currently the principal investigator of a project that investigates the benefits of creativity enhancement on an aging population, and how an intergenerational workforce can be utilized in the creative industries.
Dr. Robert Peckham, co-director of the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, will chair the session.
Creative Aging is part of the ExCEL3 project ‘Social Entrepreneurship for Health: Enhancing Networks and Building Capacities’ supported by the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Not everyone will appreciate “Eyes as Big as Plates,” a wearable art show featuring seniors, that debuted in 2011 in Norway and recently surfaced in Brooklyn, NY. But, it helps to know the backstory: “Inspired by the romantics’ belief that folklore is the clearest reflection of the soul of a people, ‘Eyes as Big as Plates’ started out as a play on characters and protagonists from Norwegian folklore.” Take a look HERE and see what you think. Look HERE to see the process involved in creating the show in New York. It includes working with the City Hall Senior Center and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council‘s residency program ‘Seniors Partnering with Artists Citywide’ (SPARC), a collaboration among the New York City Department of Cultural affairs, the Department for the Aging and the city’s five local arts councils. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the Department for the Aging.
“Worth Repeating” is a weekly feature on the EngAGE Blog that will bring you previous posts that we think are still timely, interesting, or just plain fun! From 3/27/12:
“It began in 1964 as a Time magazine photo assignment for Henry Grossman to cover the Beatles’ debut appearance on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’ It developed over the years into a deep friendship between Grossman and the group, one that allowed him rare access to document the members’ public and private moments during the height of their fame. . . . That relationship resulted in unique photos of the Fab Four, which have now been collected in 
a recently published book, ‘Places I Remember: My Time With the Beatles,’ from Curvebender Publishing. . . a 13-pound, 528-page tome drawn exclusively from Grossman’s vast collection of nearly 6,000 images from his years with the band from 1964 to ’68.” Read more 
