The Living Safer, Living Longer initiative was designed to provide lectures and in-person mentoring to help seniors and young families assess home safety and preventive health measures that can improve their quality of life.
For illustration
With the onset of the coronavirus crisis, Living Safer, Living Longer shifted its focus to mainly the elderly, a population at risk during this time.
It has joined with welfare department initiatives that phone seniors to check up on their welfare. Phone-based mentoring has replaced in-person individual guidance (for the time-being, at least), with an emphasis on home safety. This was especially important leading up to the Passover holiday, when many people do extra cleaning, retrieve dishes and other materials from hard-to-reach places, and more. And because of shelter-in-place directives, the fear was that seniors would attempt to do tasks regularly reserved for younger friends and family members, resulting in at-home accidents. Fortunately, this situation did not transpire.
Bolstered by university student volunteers, the initiative first called all seniors on welfare lists provided by the Jerusalem Municipality in the Gilo, Lev Ha’Ir and German Colony area, as well as in Kiryat Hayovel. In follow-up calls, volunteers went through a protocol of home safety checklists, to ensure that the seniors would be safe at home during this time of social distancing. Since April, the Living Safer, Living Longer project has spoken with over 520 seniors by phone. Many of them have asked for second consultations as well.
In addition, we have been getting the word out via Zoom. Aliza, the project director, has been giving Zoom lectures on making the house safe for seniors in cooperation with the Municipality’s GimlaZoom initiative for seniors, which offers a range of enrichment activities and lectures for seniors, online. After the first lecture on July 26, 12 people requested additional individual guidance via telephone. On August 12, she concentrated on ‘Making the house safe for the grandchildren,’ also of special importance for the seniors.
Screen shot of the GimlaZoom web site for seniors
Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their support of the Living Safer, Living Longer initiative.
