May 25, 2012

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The Age Friendly City - TAFCITY
Project number: 2011-1-ES1-LEO05-35886

Director:    Assoc.lect.eng. Diana ANDONE
Value:    –
Period:   –

Members:
   Prof.dr.eng. Radu VASIU
drd. Eng. Vlad MIHAESCU

Partners:
   Cdea, Spain
Norton Radstock College, United Kingdom
Matia Innova, Spain
Insignare Associacao de Ensino e Formacao, Portugal
Srednja šola za gostinstvo in turizem Maribor, Slovenia
Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Romania
Euro Contact Business School, Hungary
European Forum for Vocational Education and Training, Belgium

Project web page: http://www.tafcity.eu/

May 25, 2012

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The Age Friendly City 'TAFCITY' - The city accessible to all age groups

What is the TAFCIty project?

By 2050, 22% of the world's population will be aged 60 years or more. Until then, there will be more elderly people than children, the absolute premiere in human history. More and more elderly people live in urban areas.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched an initiative aimed at promoting the creation of "age friendly" environments (accessible to all age groups). A network of age-friendly cities has been created, including San Sebastian in Spain and Maribor in Slovenia (all of which are partners in the project).

This project will develop a training program to promote 'The Age Friendly City'.

What is an Age-friendly city (accessible to all ages)?

Active aging is the process of optimizing opportunities in several areas, to improve the quality of life, as well as the recognition and respect of the elderly, for their continuous integration into society. In an age-friendly city, many aspects of life, policies and services take into account the needs of the elderly population; these improvements also target young people, families and people with disabilities.

Eight aspects of urban life are covered by this initiative and will be pursued in the training program:

  • Outdoor spaces and constructions, transport and accommodation
  • Respect, social inclusion and civic participation
  • Medical and community support services, employment, communications and information

Target Groups

  • Current and future employees involved in tourism and other service sectors
  • Services of the local administration, responsible for maintaining the integration in the society of the elderly
  • Teachers and students involved in tourism and other service sectors

The main results of the project

  • Adaptation of course structures, processes and procedures in TACTALL (www.tactall.org) to create new modular training packages that will then be integrated into an online environment (ViCaDiS) as an area for virtual learning and educational networking, including communication and social tools for all users.
  • Creating new educational content and e-learning content. Piloting and evaluating the training program.
  • Investigating the development potential of the concept of 'The Age Friendly City'.

Skills pursued

  • Understanding the concept of “active aging”, the needs of the elderly and the services available to them; learning how to improve services and identifying the changes that are needed.
  • Acquiring the ability to interact with different age groups.

The TAFCity project brings together seven partner countries - Spain, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Portugal, Slovenia, Belgium and Romania, transferring innovative educational methodologies to understand the concept of "Active Aging". The project promotes "The Age Friendly City" in partner cities and municipalities.