Seniors Conference held at IH Vilnius, Lithuania

The final event of the Nordplus Adult Programme project “Still Active”, coordinated by Soros International House Vilnius was the international conference "Seniors for Seniors – Let’s Fight Social Exclusion Together”, held on May 18th in Vilnius, Lithuania.

In addition to the project partners from Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, and Lithuania, the conference was attended by senior learners from all partner countries, by people who represented different institutions, which in one way or the other are related to the project idea and could use the project final product in their activities. There were representatives from the Education Exchange Support Foundation, the Lithuanian Association of Adult Education, the Third Age University, Red Cross Society Seniors club in Vilnius, International Labour Contact Net and representatives from Association Seniors Initiative Centre in Kaunas.

The conference was opened with the welcoming words from Daiva Malinauskiene, Soros International House Vilnius director and the project coordinator, and the representative from the Education Exchange Support Foundation coordinating Nordplus/Adult program activities in Lithuania.

Then the plenary started. The friendly atmosphere of the conference was created by the greeting songs performed by the project participants – Vilnius Arthritis Club ensemble “Rugiagele” (Cornflower). They were joined by senior learners from Kuldiga, Latvia. Project coordinators presented visual retrospective of all the project activities, key speakers presented topics on the importance of involvement of seniors in different activities, opportunities for learning in later life, promotion of voluntary service, discussed ways to stay healthy and fit in later life. All the conference participants participated in the demonstration of physical exercises for elderly people.

After lunch project partners and senior learners participated in a workshop “Sharing experience in textile dyeing using organic materials” led by the senior textile artist Jurate Urbiene in her studio in Vilnius.

The overall conference evaluation was very positive.