Funded by the Department of Health (Victoria), the objective of this project is to support the socially isolated elderly in the Russian community of Melbourne and surrounding areas. Without social and community interaction, it is possible that people can be vulnerable and at increased risk of loneliness and isolation. Thus, the idea of the project is to understand barriers to community involvement and implement strategies to overcome that, as well as improve the health and well-being of seniors. The project aims to achieve this using different programs such as computer classes for seniors and the “Pomoshnik” system (in English, “buddy”), which keeps seniors “networked” to the wider community by connecting them with information about what is happening in the Russian-speaking community of Melbourne.
To date, computer classes for seniors have met with success. Firstly, people are being brought together to take part in weekly classes, and secondly, skills are being learned that improve seniors' communication abilities, thereby facilitating greater social involvement and empowerment. Participants have been engaged, while other seniors are using the same facilities to learn skills on computers on an ad hoc basis. Together with the computer classes, more is planned to further meet the further objectives of the project, including the above-mentioned “Pomoshnik” system, to help inform isolated seniors of further activities in the Russian Community.
Daniel Kisliakov
0425 809 702
daniel.kisliakov@rerc.org.au
Anna Lazareva
0431 465 283
anna.lazareva@rerc.org.au
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