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Age-friendly Knox

Knox City Council (KCC) has embarked on an ambitious journey to make Knox one of the best communities in which to grow old. Age-friendly physical and social environments are designed to enable older people to live safely, enjoy good health and continue to participate fully in society.

KCC became a member of the World Health Organisation’s Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities in 2019 which includes the likes of New York City, London, Delhi, and thousands more cities and communities. In joining the Network, Council has made a commitment to a five year cycle of planning, implementation and evaluation.

What does an age-friendly community look like?

An age-friendly community is where older people have a stronger voice in deciding what social and environmental aspects of their area need to be more aligned with the needs of older people. Some of the thousands of age-friendly communities initiatives that are in place include:

The City of Boroondara (Victoria) have been creating intergenerational connections by connection local families with older people through a meal sharing program “The Casserole Club”.
The New York City council installed thousands of city benches near pedestrian lights and also lengthened the time of the pedestrian light as part of their City Benches program.
In Porta, Portugal the council co-hosted art and cultural exhibits to tell the life stories of older people in the community.
In South Delhi, India a program was created to increase safety on the streets. Older people were introduced to the patrol police in their area – met them personally and exchanged contact details.

We want to hear from you

We want your help to create an Age-friendly Knox. The key to creating an age-friendly community is engaging with older people in the area to establish priorities for the project, and for them to lead and contribute important initiatives and actions.

As part of our engagement with the community, in mid 2020 we released a comprehensive Age-friendly Knox survey which was sent to over 3000 older Knox residents via mail and made available online to the rest of the community more broadly. The purpose of this survey was to find out how healthy and active our older community is, and, what they think Council and the community should prioritise to create an age friendly community.

Over the five year cycle, there will be many opportunities for community participation. A number of formal and informal consultation and collaboration opportunities will be promoted throughout. In addition, you can contact us anytime to get involved or contribute through our consultation website.

Resources

The Global Network for Age-friendly Cities and Communities has numerous freely available resources. It was established to support cities through their age friendly journey by connecting them to ageing and civil society experts; to access technical guidance and training; to explore opportunities for partnerships with other cities; and to better develop programs and services that are relevant, appropriate, sustainable and effective for older people.