Feeling younger by getting older

On a sunny September morning, several team members of the “Feeling Younger by Getting Older” (FYGO) initiative organised an ICT training session for elderly citizens, held under the auspices of a Grundtvig LLP project funded by IDEP Cyprus.
The project’s final mission is to develop an Internet portal for the aging population for them to be better and continuously integrated into current cultural, social, political, technological or economic life events. Creating a nexus and mutual skill and knowledge transfer between the elderly and their young counterparts is a further key aim of the project.
The training was initiated by Euro Med Business Research Institute (EMRBI) and the project team included Prof. Demetris Vrontis, president EMRBI and Dean at the University of Nicosia, Prof. Hans Ruediger Kaufmann, vice-president EMRBI and faculty of the University of Nicosia, Dr. Simona Mihai Yiannaki from the European University Cyprus, EMRBI’s coordinator of the project, Yioula Papakyriakou, a former Rotary Club president and Georgia Sakka from the Youth Board Cyprus.
For the first time, a group of 15 elderly citizens were trained by a team of 16 volunteers from the Youth Board Cyprus, led by Georgia Sakka, with a vast accumulated experience and knowledge in web browsing and Internet applications.
The friendly and relaxed environment was created by the informal one-to-one coaching, “like a personal coach” as one ‘learner’ mentioned, and the evaluation interview showed an interesting conclusion: that the elderly felt much more integrated in society, felt more relaxed less frustrated and more capable when using the Internet as they thought they would before the seminar. They also realised that what youngsters do nowadays with the social media and social networks and is pretty much “what we used to do when speaking over the phone years ago”.
The inter-generational cooperation resulted in that both groups were enthusiastic about this opportunity and were looking forward to the next training session, to which senior citizens interested in deciphering the internet mystery will be invited. They felt they can now do more things by themselves, from looking online for a better health, for entertainment, social networking, reading news when they happen, buying online or booking their holidays and some for ongoing professional activities.
The training space was sponsored by the University of Nicosia. For information about FYGO, visit the Facebook page: Fygo-Feeling-Younger-by-Getting-Older and the project website www.feeling-younger.eu