The Dutch project in the small town of Deventer is a aimed at creating a win-win scenario for both young and old with students earning their keep in small rent-free apartments by offering at least 30 hours per month engaging with their geriatric neighbours.
Humanitas Retirement Home is the social service organisation responsible for the initiative which started two years ago.
The students housed in the “intergenerational program” participate in a variety of activities with the 160 older residents including watching sports, celebrating birthdays and, perhaps most importantly staving off isolation when residents are unable to access the outside world easily.
“It’s important not to isolate the elderly from the outside world,” Gea Sijpkes, Humanitas’ head told PBS news. “The students bring the outside world in, there is lots of warmth in the contact.”
“When you’re 96 years old with a knee problem, well, the knee isn’t going to get any better… But what we can do is create an environment where you forget about the painful knee,” said Sijpkes.
According to a 2012 report by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America both social isolation and loneliness were factors for increased mortality in older men and women.
The students are allowed to come and go as they please as long as they are not a bother to the older residents.
Jurrien Mentink at the nursing residence. PHOTO: Twitter.
Jurrien Mentink is one of the 21-year-old students taking shelter in the aged care facility and reportedly told NPR that he runs computer lessons, cooking lessons and sometimes just “hangs out” with his older neighbours.
Mentink said he has come to really appreciate his new relationships.
“They can teach you a lot and you know them by person and not by a group of elderly people,” says Mentink.
Similar intergenerational living programs have been set up in Lyons, France and Cleveland, Ohio, according to the International Association of Homes and Services for the Ageing and one program which was established in Barcelona in the late 1990s has proven so successful it has been replicated in more than 20 cities throughout Spain.
Despite an ageing population and constant demand for cheaper student housing there are no current similar programs active in Australia.
