Solution

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To have a fruitful and meaningful later life, early planning is necessary. Therefore, we hosted an intervention program that encourages participants aged 55 to 70 to plan for their later life and to promote the meaningfulness and self-relevance of later life preparation. The programme also covers two typically less-emphasized topics in addition to financial and health aspects, namely social relationships and leisure activities.

As part of our awareness event, our team attended the Golden Age Expo and Summit to promote the concept of planning for old age and combating ageism. In addition to a talk delivered by Prof. Helene Fung, a booth was set up to promote our workshops at our second event. In our booth, with the aid of a computer software, a portrait depicting participants' aging process was created and printed as a souvenir. Some of the participants were shocked upon seeing their "simulated older self" after the experience, but they also realized that this is when they needed to prepare proactively for the challenges of old age, while our program was an excellent opportunity to kickstart the preparation. In addition to the souvenir, attendees received a leaflet regarding our intervention program. As a result, we think that this program was successful in increasing participants' understanding of the importance of planning for old age.

Our second event consists of two half-day workshops and a six-month follow-up event. We invited speakers to present at the workshops so they could share their knowledge and advice on the four key areas of preparing for old age as mentioned above. After the presentations, a majority of the attendees were able to establish clear objectives and, more significantly, create a practical plan to attain those objectives during the workshops. As a result, we believe the intervention did encourage our participants to think about specific strategies for implementing old age preparation. During group activity sessions, we hope to assist participants in creating realistic goals for themselves, which they will then work toward independently or with other group members over the course of the following six months. We divided the participants into different groups based on their shared interests or hobbies, where they will create plans for activities as they prepare for old age. As a follow-up activity, participants are required to complete a series of questionnaires every two weeks in these six months. This allows us to learn about the activities they engaged in over the past two weeks, as well as the relevance and level of self-association of those activities. To encourage individuals to actively participate in social activities while staying safe during the pandemic, we have also provided some recommendations of activities with our questionnaires, such as some online activities provided by various non-governmental organizations.