The University of Porto is part of the Erasmus+ project “Actively aGeing European Seniors – AgES”, which brings together partners from Age-Friendly Cities (AFC), to share good practices and enable seniors with tools for active and healthy ageing.

This two-year project, which brings together five AFC European cities (Gijon, Hague, Paris, Poznan and Porto), focuses on the elderly as the target group and tries to well equip them with financial, digital and health literacy through foreign language and computer courses in order to help them become active seniors who can lead their own economic life. Besides this, by involving them in activities, AgES is also reducing the risk of this group social exclusion.

The partners' old population density is more than the world average. Taking these statistics into account together with the fact that our cities are considered as habitable cities for the elderly, and some of these group lead their lives alone, these isolated lonesomes need to be socially included by letting them going out in public and giving them the chance for it. Thus, and taking into account the United Nations Principles for Older Persons, AgES aims at developing intergenerational inclusion activities – like seminars, World Seniors’ Day celebrations, traditional arts, drama, etc. – that are essential for the demographical changes Europe faces. Besides these activities, there will also be a multilingual guidebook of the Age-Friendly Cities and Active Aging in Europe, a video with the best practices in partner countries, an online course for seniors about how to get involver in civic life, and a digital platform combining all the intellectual outputs and health tips.

The Competence Centre for an Active and Healthy Ageing of the University of Porto (Porto4Ageing) is a pioneer in the adoption of projects and programmes that help the city and the elderly for ageing. Projects like in-4-aha, that build upon the legacy of the EIP on AHA, SHAPES, that work to create an open ecosystem enabling the large-scale deployment of digital solutions for healthy and independent living, or ICTskills4All, that developed an online platform for the elderly to learn about digital tools.

AgES is coordinated by the Çanakkale Governorship from the Republic of Turkey and its five partners are from different cities of Portugal (University of Porto), the Netherlands (Lidi Smart Solutions), France (E Seniors Associaton), Spain (Magenta Consultaria) and Poland (Fundacja Parasol).