Community (Needle)work: Opening Space and Nurturing Community Engagement

Community (Needle)work (Vez(enine) skupnosti in the Slovene language) is a project conceived in response to the aging of our society. Elders are often pushed to the edge and institutions have failed to provide alternative support mechanisms. The project thus aims to highlight the significant role communities can play in the well-being of their members and the role space plays in the creation of communities and encouraging mutual care. To establish a sustainable system of long-term care, accessible public social-welfare services and social-welfare programs are no more important than preventive measures, such as ensuring adequate housing conditions, establishing community areas that enable gatherings, self-help and exchange, as well as support for informal care providers.

As part of the project, we will research good practices of community assistance and community housing in long-term care. Elders, their relatives, formal and informal care providers, and all other stakeholders will be able to learn about the findings of our research at traveling exhibition, which will be put on display in various local communities. The exhibition will be accompanied by interesting events, which will spark opportunities for gatherings and discussions about needs and experiences in the field of long-term care. We will talk about how we would like ourselves and our close ones to be taken care of in old age. Proposals and initiatives will be forwarded to local and state decision-makers, with whom we will search for ways of bringing them to life.

At the same time, we will work together with institutions to find new ways of bringing life outside homes for the elderly together with life inside them – and vice-versa. We will look for ways integrating homes for the elderly with the community and ensuring that the door between the two are always open wide. We will also help establish and reward quality forms of volunteering in homes for the elderly, which are a good and accessible form of assistance, a door into the community, and a possibility for creating long-lasting bond with the local community.