Checklist for age friendly cities

Towards the end of last year meetings were held to invite people to share opinions around the theme of Age Friendly Kapiti.

I thought it might be helpful to give a bit of history around the Age Friendly movement.

The World Health Organisation assembled a Checklist of Essential Features of Age Friendly Cities in 2007 after conducting “project consultation in 33 cities in 22 countries”.

The purpose of that checklist was that it would be a “tool for city’s selfassessment and a map for charting progress”.

To add more information from the checklist it goes on to explain —

“This checklist is intended to be used by individuals and groups interested in making their city more age-friendly.

“For the checklist to be effective, older people must be involved as full partners.

“In assessing a city’s strengths and deficiencies, older people will describe how the checklist of features matches their own experience of the city’s positive characteristics and barriers.

“They should play a role in suggesting changes and in implementing and monitoring improvements.”

The really good news is that New Zealand has been accepted as an affiliate member of the Global Network of Age Friendly Cities and Communities.

There are currently over 1000 different cities involved across 40 countries covering over 240 million people.

Looking at the checklist I see there are eight separate categories.

To show that the Age Friendly work will benefit everyone and not just the older persons in our communities I am listing these: outdoor spaces and buildings, transportation, housing, social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication and information, community and health services.

Each of the sections listed above has from seven to 17 bullet points under the appropriate section.

The Office for Seniors has been working with Ka¯ piti as Ka¯ piti has been chosen as one of only three pilot communities involved with implementing Age Friendly principles in New Zealand. The other two are New Plymouth and Hamilton.

Perhaps I should also add that the Ka¯ piti group working with outcomes from last year’s community meetings settled on some slightly different titles for various sections but never-the-less have incorporated the broad principles.

Should you wish to view the total WHO checklist it is available online at www.who.int/ageing/publications/ Age_friendly_cities_checklist.pdf

The Kapiti Older Persons Council meets on the last Wednesday of each month in council chambers — come along and find out what we are about.