Older citizens remain active during Covid-19
Age & Opportunity – the leading national development organisation improving the quality of life of people aged from 50 to 100 and over – hosted a webinar celebrating keeping active as we age this week as part of their Erasmus+ Sport project with Italian and Belgian partners Lunga Vitta Ativa and Okra Sport+.
The three countries involved – Ireland, Italy and Belgium – and the participants all came together online to share their experience of taking part in the Euro Games Fest, which took place in October this year.
Each country championed a particular activity. Ireland had scidils, Belgium had cross boccia and Italy had resilience, a game played in a swimming pool. The idea was that each country would try all three activities.
One participant remarked: “It was really nice to meet with such a diverse group. I hope you will repeat this again. In the meantime, I think you’ve provided quite a lot of info to get stuck into, and hopefully the impetus to get started back exercising again.”
In October, 15 participants representing seven counties from across Ireland (Cavan, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Mayo and Tipperary) took part in the online Euro Games Fest day to celebrate keeping active and enjoyed playing scidils and cross boccia.
The festival was originally going to bring participants together but, due to Covid-19, it had to be transferred online. The participants enjoyed interacting and playing the games of scidils and cross boccia using simple household items. As the Italian game of resilience is pool-based, it was not possible to move it online – but when it’s safe for the groups to meet in person they will have an opportunity to try out the game.
Similar events took place in Italy (in person as local guidelines allowed) and in Belgium (online), and the feedback at the webinar this week confirmed what a positive experience the participants had, although everyone is looking forward to being able to meet safely in person in the future.
Visit https://ageandopportunity.ie to learn more about Age & Opportunity’s work.