On 1 April the Red Cross of Serbia started implementation of the project “Ageing in Cities”, as part of the ongoing partnership between the Red Cross of Serbia, the Commissioner for Protection of Equality and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Like projects in the past, this project will be exploring the quality of life of older women and men in urban areas, as well as their real needs, in order to develop good recommendations for decision makers and policy creators. The data collected in this project will be easy to compare with the data collected through last year’s “Older People in Rural Areas” project, making the insight in ageing and older people in Serbia more complete.

This is a part of the continued effort of the Red Cross of Serbia, the Commissioner and UNFPA to make services for older people more accessible, protect older people from discrimination and support them in actively participating in all aspects of public life. Additionally, the project provides the opportunity to inform older people on their guaranteed rights and the ways to exercise them.

As part of the project activities, on 4. September a workshop for data collectors was organised in the Red Cross of Serbia headquarters. Attending were representatives of 16 local branches of the Red Cross coming from: Vrbas, Indjija, Savski venac, Kragujevac, Krusevac, Kraljevo, Valjevo, Knjazevac, Merosina, Dimitrovgrad, Zvezdara, Rakovica, Kovin, Sombor who will interview older people in their communities and the Bread of Life NGO who will interview older people on the territory of Vracar municipality.

One of the objectives of the project is to recommend developing a pilot-project “Age-Friendly Community” as such communities are friendly to all their citizens.