Ruth Marks, the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales is supporting an exciting new campaign which has been developed in the Caerphilly county borough to help change perceptions about older people and tackling age discrimination.
The ‘Age Is Just a Number!’ campaign has been developed by the 50+ Positive Action Partnership and the Safer Caerphilly Community Safety Partnership.
The Commissioner met members of Caerphilly Youth Forum and Lewis School Pengam LINC 50+ lunch club this week at the ’50+ My Life My Way’ event at Heolddu Leisure Centre in Bargoed, where she formally launched the ‘Age is Just Number’ stereotypes questionnaire.
The questionnaire looks at the impact of stereotypes on Older and Younger people. The Commissioner encouraged as many people as possible to complete the questionnaire to enable the Caerphilly 50+ Positive Action Partnership to gather enough evidence to persuade the media and other organisations to use more positive images. She also had high praise for the Youth Forum’s film ‘Bluff Stuff’ which also tackles the issue of stereotypes.
The Age is Just Number! Campaign uses powerful, positive pictures and ideas submitted by Caerphilly residents on calendars, Caerphilly bus adverts and websites. We hope in time these really positive images will replace the negative ones and will begin to break down some of the negative stereotypes people have.
The Campaign is a joint project between the 50+ Positive Action and the Safer Caerphilly Community Safety Partnerships and has been funded by the Welsh Assembly Government’s Older People’s Reassurance scheme.
