Can older people be active on green issues? And how do we help them find interesting creative activities to stay active and socially engaged?

These questions are answered by the project the “SenGA – Seniors in Green Action – from Hands to Minds to Souls” (2022-1-BG01-KA220-ADU-000085169). Its long-term objective is to increase the awareness of seniors and experts and educators working with them about recycling, circular economy and ‘green’ and environmentally friendly solutions and to create educational resources in the field suitable for elders, so as to support their active ageing and social inclusion.
During the project we developed an Interactive ToT Handbook how to engage elder people in creative recycling and ‘green’ activities and organised a series of creative workshops with elder adults, including such with dementia, to probe the developed resources and to create practical case studies of creative recycling and upcycling activities using the approach “FROM ELDERS TO ELDERS”.
To ensure that active seniors and elder adult educators are properly equipped with the necessary resources and instructions on how to put in practice the proposed approach and activities, we developed:

  1. Guidelines how to engage senior adult learners in non-formal education on the topics of recycling and circular economy. They include 2 parts:
    o Basic principles of environmental protection, sustainability, recycling and circular economy.
    o Creating suitable learning environment for elder adult learners and basic principles of effective engagement of seniors in educational and community-based activities.
  2. Resource Library with 39 best practices and hands-on examples of community-based environmental and artistic activities initiated or run by seniors. All materials are classified in an easy-to-browse database on the Resource Library.
  3. 6 sets with 18 exemplar hands-on activities based on circular economy and creative recycling and upcycling, and suitable for senior adult learners. Each set contains 3 activities for creative recycling of different types of resources, such as fabric and garment, metallic elements, CDs and DVDs, plastics, paper and cardboard, wooden materials and furniture or glass and mirror pieces and objects. Each activity includes a step-by-step explanation how to do it, as well as helpful tips and variations on how to adapt it to elder adults. The activities vary in their level of complexity – some of them are very simple and suitable for elders with disabilities and dementia, while others are more complicated and require more advanced fine motor skills. The sets are arranged in an easy-to-navigate database on the Interactive ToT Handbook.
  4. An additional module with 3 lessons on how elders could turn their non-formal craft activities into entrepreneurship initiatives.
  5. A series of short videos with practical case studies showing ‘green’ and creative upcycling activities using the approach “FROM ELDERS TO ELDERS”. For this, we recorded our creative workshops, so to inspire other seniors to follow suit.
    As a result, we want to lay the foundations of a nonformal network of ‘SENIOR GREEN AMBASSADORS’ and peer-to-peer educators, who are aware about recycling, circular economy and ‘green’ and environmentally friendly solutions, and equipped with a variety of recourses, exemplar activities and video case studies in the field of creative upcycling suitable for elder people.
    All developed resources are fully and freely available on the project website – www.activegreenseniors.eu.
    Would you like to enrich your knowledge about circular economy and environmental sustainability? Or to improve your practices about how to better involve silver learners in interesting craft and creative recycling and up-cycling activities? Delve into the InteractiveToT Handbook, get inspiration from the 6 sets with 18 exemplar creative upcycling activities and look at the video case studies on the Interactive ToT Handbook.
    The project “SenGA – Seniors in Green Action – from Hands to Minds to Souls” (2022-1-BG01-KA220-ADU-000085169) is co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme of the EU. The partnership includes 6 organisations from 5 European countries – Bulgarian School of Politics “Dimitry Panitza” and Creativity and Educational Studio ARTIED from Bulgaria, Forum CSRD from the Republic of North Macedonia, Adam Mickiewicza University from Poland, ASSET BASILICATA from Italy, and STP Consulting from Spain. For more information, check out the project website on: www.activegreenseniors.eu.