2022 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
16th Edition
With more than 32000 elderly (aged 65 and above), one fifth of Amadora’s population, this city needed to address the matter of active aging and empowering the senior citizens, increasing their quality of life and well being, but also contributing in a proactive way towards risk reduction and community bonding.
The city saw as extremely important to empower the elderly and use their knowledge and skills in a proactive, positive way, contributing to strengthen community resilience, teaching others (from small children to other elderly), and at the same time valuing even more the role of the elders as decision makers, key support and active members of the community. Because of that, Amadora’s Civil Protection Office created the Senior Academy for Civil Protection in 2014, a new and innovative project that relies on senior volunteering to promote awareness for safety and risk reduction. Senior volunteers provide support and are extremely helpful in several activities, revealing themselves as capable and cherished community members.
We, as a local government, believe that community empowerment and citizen participation is key to achieve a resilience culture and strengthen community’s ability to prevent, respond and recover after a disaster situation. That is why this project is so important: it empowers senior citizens to use their knowledge and skills to promote awareness on risks and disasters, and to achieve an active role in society and their local communities.
To join this project, interested parties only need to be integrated in an association or organization with social responses for the elderly, as well as enrolled in Amadora’s local volunteering bank. Volunteers are given proper accident insurance and training to tackle several aspects of civil protection activities, such as event planning and support, awareness sessions for schools and communities, digital skills, etc.. All that enrichens even more the knowledge of the most wise and available members in Amadora’s community.
So far, this project has had a huge impact in our city, country, and even abroad, with high praise by organizations such as the Nippon foundation, the UN and others. The project is regularly monitored and evaluated through a series of meetings (in the senior academy office, installed in Amadora’s civil protection office and municipal police’s headquarters) with the senior agents’ representatives, where new ideas are exposed and approved, and older ideas can be remade or improved.
This is an innovative, never before done project, that involves the elderly in citizen participation, governance, decision making processes, and awareness actions. The project currently counts with a total of 34 senior agents of civil protection, with different ages, genders, cultures, and backgrounds, that bring huge skills and know-how to the table, proving themselves to be active and valuable members of the society.
More information:
https://pt-pt.facebook.com/amadora.resiliente
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