We All are Europe - AESAEC

Therefore, we thought the conceptual framework of the AESAEC training programme should include
not only knowledge about European institutions and policies concerning older people and knowledge
about how a project proposal is shaped. We thought that students in later life involved in preparing
a European project proposal should start by increasing knowledge about themselves and their position
in society and also learn more about how they can contribute towards changing society for the
better.
I.2. Towards understanding old age, senior citizens’ needs and issues and their active role in
the community
In most Western European countries old age did not emerge as a political and social issue until the
1950s. After the Second World War, Europe was mainly interested in repairing the damage and looking
towards the future focussing on the younger generations, often forgetting about older people.
Older people were portrayed by social stereotypes as passive not interested in any kind of participation
in society. In the AESAEC project and training we are interested in the new European attitudes
towards older people and new European approaches towards participation of senior citizens in
community life and education associated with it. In addition we are interested in examples of good
practice in this field as a source of learning.
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An active senior citizen who is ready to devise a European project proposal, prepare an application
and eventually implement the project, if the proposal is successful, should have knowledge about
the existing frame programmes and above all should be familiar with values and concepts concerning
older people, old age, the style of life of older people, pension schemes, active ageing and
other policies, the right to a pension and the right to work, the right to social security, flexible security,
etc. Moreover, he or she should also know about the European institutions and policies that
concern older people and their relationships with other generations as well as the most important
European non-governmental organisations dealing with the issues of older people. He or she should
be aware that older people are not all the same, as actually they are all different, much more different
than the members within the younger generations and therefore he or she should stand for
the right to be different in later life, to have his or her own style of life, to be differently treated
by policies, etc.. Not all older people are patients and their ageing is not necessarily pathological,
but rather normal, not all older people are poor, not all older people are helpless or functionally
illiterate. An active senior citizen should therefore stand up against the discourse of weakness and
dependence adopted in most policies, by the media, public statements and other texts about people
in later life. Moreover, not all older people are grandmothers and grandfathers, as they can
have different social roles. They can be workers, volunteers, learners, etc. They differ according to
the status they have in society. They have different needs if they are employed or not, if they are
volunteers or not, if they live alone or in a family, if they have a partner or not, if they have managed
to create a large or a small social network, if in their network younger people are included, if
this network is a source of emotional support and information, that is an open network, or if it is