UPDATE 15 - EXTRA NEWS
Australian Coalition '99 Vic - Partner Forum
Sharing the Wisdom
was the aim and title of the gathering of eighty of the AC'99 Victoria partners at the YWCA on November 17.
Across a full day of workshops and plenaries, partners shared and 'show-cased' their activities over the last twelve months. Displays, videos and a great deal of talking helped capture some of the richness of the tapestry that has been IYOP in Victoria. Workshops on issues such as Housing Options, Active Living, Multiculturalism, Visual Displays, Using the Media, Changing Attitudes and many more, helped partners to talk in groups about what they did, why they did it and what they can take forward beyond 1999. The most popular workshop by far was that on storytelling and writing, underlining the powerful impact that storytelling has a process for reaching across the generations, for sharing knowledge and for changing attitudes. Within every workshop, the importance of partnerships forged during the year was emphasised as an enduring benefit.
A highlight of the day was a keynote speech from the Hon. Bronwyn Pike, new Victorian Minister for Housing and Aged Care. The Minister emphasised that, from a Government perspective, the work of AC 99 Victoria has been invaluable and the partnership between AC 99 Victoria and her Department's Aged Care Branch has shaped the way the Department has developed initiatives to mark the International Year.
The Minister also highlighted two new initiatives that will continue the work in the challenging area of debunking negative stereotypes of ageing well beyond the International Year:
- a project which will involve working with health professionals to examine how ageism may be inadvertently practised within their own policies and practices. In community consultations, older people have repeatedly told us that they tire of hearing statements like "What do you expect at your age"?
The answer should be "A lot more !!"
- Another key project to engender long-term positive change in community attitudes is 'Rewriting the Script', a forum that is scheduled for February 2000 which will bring together key planning and creative people from the television and film industry to examine the role older people currently play in our popular media. The invisibility of older people on screen is a common complaint. And where older people are represented, it seems the image of ageing is too often stereotyped with older people being portrayed as either frail victims or bungy jumping grannies. 'Rewriting the Script' will test these assumptions with research into the viewing patterns and tastes of older people and will survey how older people are portrayed on television. The forum will be an opportunity to bring decision makers, writers, producers, directors together, to alert them to the growing market of older people, to show them why it is in the interests of programmers to consider the tastes and preferences of older people and to let them learn, from older people themselves, what older people want to see on TV and in film. This won't necessarily lead to a rash of telemovies about older people but what it will do, hopefully, is to ensure that the diversity of older people's lives are more accurately represented in what you see, hear and read.
The gathering was then addressed by Delys Sargent, National Chair of AC'99 who lifted our thoughts to the international level and how we may go forward globally. At the end of the day, AC'99 Victoria partners shared some of what we might take forward beyond IYOP into the next century. Our final partners gathering will be on February 23, 2000, when we shall officially wind up our IYOP activity but not the myriad connections and rich experiences we have gained.
Kath McKay
Project Officer,
AC'99 Victoria, November 18, 1999
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