At the Centre for Culture and Education Rakovica, Belgrade, on 28 January 2019 a conference was organised entitled “Motivate Yourself”, as a final event in the project of the same title implemented by the Pensioner Association, supported by the municipal administration, in partnership with Handcrafts Secondary School and Cultural and Artistic Association “Dimitrije Kotirovic”. The “Motivate Yourself” project promoted active ageing, social entrepreneurship and intergenerational cooperation through creation of handcrafted items and presenting these items through exhibitions, fairs and other events. Activities and results of the project were presented by Ms. Ljubinka Adamaovic, the project lead and Natasa Todorovic of the Red Cross of Serbia, member of the Governmental Council for Intergenerational Solidarity and the Governmental Council on Ageing spoke about the importance of such projects that improve the inclusion of older women and men and contribute to better quality of life of this population.

Natasa Todorovic spoke about some important aspects of social inclusion of older people, underlining that lifelong education is one of the essential elements of social inclusion. She also spoke about intergenerational solidarity and exchange as well as the need to promote intergenerational cooperation through proactive initiatives where members of older, middle and young generations will work together, united through shared interest. Society also needs to ensure financial security to older people, especially older women as they are statistically significantly more exposed to the risk of poverty in the older age.

This project also worked on activating older people through activities on preservation of cultural heritage, in the European Year of Cultural Heritage (2018), which is a good way to join several socially beneficial activities into one action and also contributes to preservation of mental health of older persons. Active older persons have better health status and decreasing loneliness through activities in the community directly contributes to decreasing the risk of depression. Finally, digital inclusion is one of the important segments of social inclusion as it helps older people access different services with more ease, which is directly linked to their guaranteed human rights.

The „Motivate Yourself“ project was inspired and motivated by the “Taking Action on Social Inclusion of Older People” project, coordinated in five countries of the region by the Red Cross of Serbia with support provided by European Union, Austrian Development Agency and Austrian Red Cross.