Projects

InCreaSe – Intercultural Creativity of Seniors: A Travelling European Academy

SEN@ER partner regions and those from the age-culture.net network a currently working on a Grundtvig learning partnership under the coordination of the Institut für Bildung und Kultur e.V. from North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and involving partners from 8 countries. InCreaSe is a travelling training academy for cultural learning and participation of older people in Europe. During the two-year partnership the expert partners will meet in each others’ countries to exchange models of good practice in different specialisms. These involve different ethnic groups and generations, ‘keyworking’, volunteering for culture, theatre and media work. The overall aim is to develop training modules for implementation at a yearly “European Summer School”.

More information is available here: www.age-culture.de

AAMEE - Active Ageing of Migrant Elders across Europe

2 October 2008 - The AAMEE project has been launched by the SEN@ER partner region North Rhine-Westphalia in response to the impact of demographic change as one of the greatest challenges facing the European Union and a key element to promote economic and social inclusion within the EU.
Within the growing group of elders, minority ethnic and migrant elders have become an important new target group. They also have a great deal of potential and competence especially regarding their contribution to society, notably as volunteers, but also as workers and regarding cultural and economic potential.
The AAMEE project comprises of the following activities:

Two European good practice competitions "Active Ageing and Social, Cultural and Economic Integration of Migrant Elders in Europe", addressing a) voluntary organisations and b) local authorities and NGOs - for further details on the competition criteria please refer to the www.aamee.eu website
The 1st European conference "Migrant Elders across Europe - from Challenges to Opportunities", 30 September - 2 October, 2008, venue World Conference Centre Bonn http://www.worldccbonn.com
Six good practice exchange programmes for voluntary organisations from different European countries;
The development of a checklist on how to stimulate and strengthen voluntary work of and with migrant elders in Europe;
A good practice booklet containing recommendations for new activities and initiatives concerning active ageing for migrant elders within Europe;
The adoption and implementation of a research agenda and the establishment of a scientific research network;
The adoption of a memorandum formulating guidelines and principles on how to sensitise societies and governments for the concerns as well as potentials of migrant elders.

The AAMEE project aims at generating a broad basis of actors - e.g. NGOs, voluntary organisations, local authorities, researchers, policy makers and supporters from various economic areas - from all over Europe.
The AAMEE project is funded by the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities of the European Commission within the ENEA programme (VP/2007/009 ENEA). The project has been initiated and is co-financed by the Ministry for Intergenerational Affairs, Family, Women and Integration of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (MGFFI NRW).

Further information can be obtained from the website www.aamee.eu

SOPRANO - Service Oriented PRogrammable smArt enviroNments for Older Europeans

Partners from several SEN@ER regions from Yorkshire, North Rhine-Westphalia, North West Region and Andalucia are currently cooperating in the development of independent living systems and services with European funding through the European Commission IST Programme which is part of the Framework Programme 6. Several partners from SEN@ER regions are involved in the project.

SOPRANO is the acronym for "Service Oriented PRogrammable smArt enviroNments for Older Europeans". SOPRANO will design and develop highly innovative, context-aware, smart services with natural and comfortable interfaces for older people at affordable cost, meeting requirements of users, family and care providers and significantly extending the time we can live independently in our homes when older. User friendliness and acceptability is top priority for the project - a zero-slope learning curve is to be achieved and inter-faces are to "vanish" into domestic settings. Large-scale viability in real homes will be demonstrated with 600 users to raise public awareness and accelerate AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) exploitation.

The project will run for 40 months and its budget is around 12 million Euros of which 7 million are funded by the Commission. The major industry partner is the Tunstall Group Ltd (United Kingdom) with its headquarters located in the SEN@ER partner region of Yorkshire.

Partners from four SEN@ER regions take part in this project: Andalucia (FASS Fundación Andaluza de Servicios Sociales), North Rhine-Westphalia (PROSYST SOFTWARE GMBH, empirica GmbH) and the North West Region (University of Liverpool). In two SEN@ER regions SOPRANO fields trials will be carried out and demonstrators installed.

More information is available here: http://www.soprano-ip.org

MobilAlarm - a location-independent emergency service

MobilAlarm was a project in which a location-independent emergency service was piloted in several European regions including the SEN@ER regions Andalucia and Yorkshire and involving further partners from these regions and North Rhine-Westphalia and Yorkshire including – amongst others – the Tunstall Group.

This European market validation project – financially supported by the European Commission eTen programme was successfully concluded and the service is now available on the market.

The European MobilAlarm project tested an innovative, location-independent alarm service which enables older people, those concerned about safety, the chronically ill, and the disabled to initiate an alarm call whenever and wherever they need or want to do so, thus improving their quality of life. The marketability and potential use of the service was studied. Partners representing the whole value chain were involved in this project – from device manufacturers via the service centres to patient associations. Across Europe, 5.5 % of all households with people older than 50 are connected to a conventional, location-dependent social alarm service. According to current market research, the number of people using alarm services will increase dramatically over the decades to come, and there is evidence that the demand for location-independent alarm service provision will rise at an even faster rate as a result of changes in lifestyles and habits. MobilAlarm aims to provide a simple solution to meet these requirements.

Following the successful completion of the project, the MobilAlarm device and service has been introduced to the market by the Tunstall company with its headquarters in Yorshire.

A product description in English is available here.

Click here for information in German language.