Neighborhoods, Families and Individuals
	The Business Sector
	Schools and Colleges
	The Media

Neighbourhoods, families and individuals

Local government, town community leaders, families and individuals may wish, as appropriate, to:

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The Business Sector

Where not already established, the business sector and professional societies and individuals may wish to:

• Establish employment agencies to identify and promote suitable work opportunities and environments for seniors in consultation with seniors;
• Expand life-long on-the-job training and retraining opportunities for new technologies, community service, and income-security in old age;
• Support senior enterprises and co-operatives in their initial stages including, for example, small-scale print shops, laundries, farms, mills, bakeries and so on. These could be established in or close to residential homes for the ageing;
• Examine whether expanding work opportunities for seniors in the neighbourhood implies contracting work opportunities for the young, and whether both age groups could co-operate on joint projects;
• Organize a seniors' trade show for seniors who are plumbers, weavers, herbalists, farmers, nurses, electricians, accountants, carpenters, photographers and artists;
• Issue a seniors' directory listing seniors willing to share expertise and support local, national and international development efforts;
• Prepare a manual on income-generating activities by seniors to which end local business clubs and organizations may provide useful advice, models and practical support;
• Publish a handbook on fund-raising for local self-help or service organizations to enable them to tap financial backing from different sources;
• Request community leaders to issue business awards to enterprises that have special rates for seniors, give generously to seniors' organizations, or make other significant contributions to seniors' well-being;
• Support employees who are care-givers through introducing flexible work hours, and integrated day-care centres for dependants of all ages, possibly in co-operation with the local Government and the voluntary service sector;
• Introduce flexible retirement ages and practices and organize pre-retirement consultations;
• Design and market a wider and more attractive range of health-promoting goods and services for all ages, which would especially benefit the ageing.

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Schools and Colleges

Surveys, youth assemblies on ageing and other activities appropriate for schools and colleges are listed elsewhere in this action programme. Additionally, universities, open universities, Universities of the Third Age, community colleges, junior and high schools may wish, as appropriate, to:

• Expand education for seniors by (i) opening to them a number of places in regular courses at reduced rates or free of charge, (ii) organizing special courses for seniors on themes directly relating to ageing, such as health maintenance, income security and changing images of older persons;
• Arrange lectures and workshops for journalists, advertisers, architects, employers, social and health care-givers, family care-givers, volunteers, and members of local government on the implications of an ageing population and options in responding to it;
• Conduct surveys, in co-operation with seniors for use in developing local plans and programmes on ageing, including, for example, a survey of training needs of the ageing, their families and socio-economic and political institutions. A parallel survey could be conducted on the preparedness of adult and other educational institutions to provide the required training;
• Write and perform an oral history play where, first, a group of students make tape-recordings of seniors talking about their lives and then write a play on the basis of the recordings, in which seniors would play themselves as they are today and youth would play the seniors as they were during the events recorded;
• Launch a poster and/or essay competition offering prizes for the poster or essay that best depicts a theme related to inter-generational co-operation. Prizes could be donated by local business or shops; winning posters could be exhibited, and the best essays published or broadcast by the local media;
• Establish gerontology as a core subject for students of social sciences, journalism, education, as well as nursing and medicine where geriatrics may also be made a core subject;
• Organize exchanges between retired teachers in developed and developing countries to support literacy as well as cultural understanding and enrichment.

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The Media

Thirty-eight suggestions are given in the Local Agenda on Ageing for the 1990s, encompassing neighbourhoods, families and individuals; the business sector; schools and colleges; and the media.

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