The project 'Fun for Each Other Amsterdam' started in early October 2019. In Buitenveldert, the first group met at the end of January at OBA Linnaeusstraat on 12 March. The meetings are weekly.

In connection with the Coronavirus, the meetings have been suspended and communication takes place via digital channels and telephone.

 

Fun for each other elderly Amsterdam is aimed at providing lonely elderly (vital) people with a new means to improve their situation: playing together using new social media and techniques that increase and strengthen your circle of friends and acquaintances. The virtual (gaming) environment of VayaV is a very suitable instrument for this

The project focuses on stimulating awareness. Awareness about old age as an independent phase of life, reflecting on its interpretation, and awareness of one's own generation perspective.

How to age well, how do you do that? It is not always easy to have a conversation about this.

The Vaya LVE projects show that this awareness process has been stimulated to be carried out by the elderly assuming that they try something (new media) that they thought they could not, that they did not want and that it was beyond their reach. would lie:

The self-image is improved: I can do it together with others and I can do something for the other in this area.

Important topics come to the table in a 'safe' way, namely through the use of new media: personal safety, loneliness, increasing complaints, being creative, need for play and fun, keeping in touch with each other without mobility problems, capturing and sharing memories. and even "intimacy."

These topics are also recommended to discuss because it often concerns the future note for other (more vulnerable) elderly people in Alphen. Participants are considered valued experts by experience who contribute to the project now and in the future.

The new social media has emerged and grown precisely because of this yield: having fun together, mutual benefit and support, in an easy way that demands little of your physical and mental capabilities. It is therefore unacceptable that large groups of people, especially vulnerable (older) people, are deprived of this media because of ignorance and supposed "ignorance". While they could use it well given their situation and needs.

 

Financial support

The project is financially supported by the Sluyterman van Loon Fund and the RCOAK.