Older volunteers of the Red Cross of Kovin as well as members of self-help groups for older people have on Thursday, 16 August visited older volunteers from Velika Plana. The objective of the visit was primarly to have a workshop focused on the topic of human rights of older women and men. At the workshop older people familiarised themselves with the rights related to social and health protection, pension and disability insurance, but also with the information related to the right to work, lifelong learning, the right to be free from abuse and the right to palliative care. The volunteers were active older people, familiar with citizen’s activism and they shared their experiences in exercising their rights – both positive and negative – wuth the workshop participants. Older people were also invited to suggest how to improve access to human rights.

The value of such events is primarily to improve people’s knowledge through socialising and increase the potential among older people to support and assist those among them who are not sufficiently active and who need assistance in accessing their rights. The education workshop was moderated by the Red Cross of Serbia associates Natasa Todorovic and Dr Milutin Vracevic as part of the Taking Action on Social Inclusion of Older People project supported by European Union, Austrian Deveopment Agency and Austrian Red Cross.

In addition to education, the older persons participating in the workshop had the opportunity to exchange experiences, socialise and visit Koporin Monastery and get some information on history of Velika Plana from a local historian.

These two municipalities have been selected for the joint workshop as this is not the first time for the older persons, volunteers of the Red Cross of Kovina and Red Cross of Velika Plana. In fact this is now their traditional way of socialising, demonstrating the importance of building social capital that will lead to better social inclusion of older people.