Events
Antoinette McGowan
I joined County Leitrim Community Forum in 2002 representing
the elderly. I am a founder member of the 99" club, Drumkeeran's
active age group since October 1999. We presently have over
40 members both male and female. Our oldest member is a 95
year old gentleman. We meet every Wednesday 2 – 5pm in the
Community Centre. Our club is a member of the Irish Senior
Citizens Parliament and I represent the club on the active
age project sub-committee of Community Connections.
At the moment I am one of the Forum's representatives on the
steering group for the Older Persons Project; An saol mhaith
(the good life), which is a Combat Poverty Agency funded project
jointly sponsored by Leitrim County Council and the Community
Forum, the aim of which is to tackle issues which can be addressed,
particularly in the short term, in order to improve the quality of
life for older people.
An Saol Maith/the Good Life?
An Action Research Project working with Older People.
The origins of this project lies with the Social Inclussion
Measures Group (SIM’s) of the County Development Board. It
is co-funded by the County Leitrim Community Forum, Leitrim
County Council and the Combat Poverty Agency. The project
aims to look at ways in which the quality of life of older
people can be improved through service delivery.
The project looked at what is happening at present both in
the county and at National level and backed these up with
focus groups to acertain what the real issues on the ground
are. These have now been categorised under the headings of:
| • |
Access to public bodies and their services. |
| • |
Communication and Information. |
| • |
Consultation. |
| • |
Resources. |
What the report does is itemise a list of specific timetabled
actions that those agencies dealing with older people have
agreed to deliver. Because this project has been commissioned
by the SIM’s group they are in a position to call to account
any of these agencies who fail to deliver. The monitoring is
to be ongoing and in this the Community Forum will play a major
role.
The report and the detailed list of agreed actions are to be
available from the county council after its launch in Drumshanbo
on December 9th 2004.
David Spence
North Leitrim Community Forum Rep., Leitrim Social Incusion
Meassures Group.
|
