Westman age friendly communities given grants
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/02/2024 (679 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The City of Brandon and five other Westman communities have each been awarded a grant of $10,000 to support age-friendly community projects from the Manitoba Association of Senior Communities.
In addition to the Wheat City, the Municipality of Harrison Park, the Town of Carberry, the Norfolk-Treherne Development Corporation, the Municipality of Cartwright-Roblin, and the Municipality of Russell-Binscarth have received the grants.
The grant for the Municipality of Harrison Park, located 97 kilometres northwest of Brandon, will go toward building an outdoor structure that the community of Sandy Lake can use for all its residents, Quinn Greavett, the finance officer with the municipality, told the Sun.
Connie Newman, executive director of the Manitoba Association of Senior Communities (MASC), the organization that manages the Age Friendly Manitoba initiative. (File)
“It can be used for anything, just as a place to gather, have your lunch on your lunch break,” she said. “Sandy Lake also has Western Days, a big, multi-day event in that community, so it can be used in conjunction with some other community outings.”
The grant to build the outdoor structure falls in line with the municipality’s long-term goal of revitalization in Sandy Lake, Greavett said.
The Manitoba Association of Senior Communities (MASC) recently launched age friendly Manitoba 2.0 to continue supporting healthy aging and social health of seniors in Manitoba. age friendly communities are part of a global plan driven by the World Health Organization (WHO). The program is part of the WHO’s age friendly model, which is meant to engage and connect communities and countries in its Decade of Healthy Aging, which runs from 2021-2030.
In 2020, the WHO defined age friendly communities as places that were free from physical, economic and social barriers and where policies, products, services and more were tailored to more comfortable aging.
The Province of Manitoba is helping to fund MASC as it offers leadership, support and resources to communities that are striving to become more age friendly.
When communities invest in age -friendly initiatives, they become better places to live, Connie Newman, executive director of MASC, previously told the Sun.
“Being age friendly means encouraging physical exercise, better nutrition, and more social interaction for everyone throughout their entire lives. For too long, we’ve tended to treat seniors as unneeded and unwanted people, which leads to more loneliness, more chronic illness, and shorter lives,” she said.
Age Friendly Manitoba was launched in 2008 through the Manitoba government to help older adults remain active, healthy, and independent, to contribute to their families and communities.
Currently, there are 229,050 Manitobans aged 65 or older, which is 17 per cent of the population. Of that group, 29,255 are aged 85 or older.
On a national scale, the number of people aged 85 and older has doubled since 2001, with predictions that the number could triple by 2046, according to Statistics Canada.
Looking at communities through age-friendly points of view helps to improve the quality of life that people who live there can achieve, age friendly Manitoba’s website states. There are currently 92 age-friendly communities across Manitoba.
» mleybourne@brandonsun.com
» X: @miraleybourne
» with files from Michele McDougall