Six large cities have jointly developed a service whose purpose is not only to provide the elderly with easy-to-consume culture, but also to employ actors in the arts and culture sector.
The development of the cultural service for the elderly has progressed to the point that the target group has been called together again to give their opinion on the demo version of the Lämpiö.fi website.
The nationwide service, which will be launched at the beginning of 2023, has also been developed by the cities of Tampere, Turku, Jyväskylä and Oulu under the leadership of the city of Helsinki. And, of course, the customer councils made up of elderly people.
– I had to work for a long time to understand what kind of things are difficult for elderly people. Or how a word is understood. For example, you can’t put the word join on a button, because they don’t want to join anything, they just want to participate, Wenell describes.
Togetherness despite long distances
The purpose of the Lämpiö.fi website is to offer both free and paid cultural services, such as theater and music performances. In addition, the site has various wellness and exercise services, such as distance jogging and knowledge quizzes. There are also live broadcasts where you can take part in, for example, a sing-along or play bingo.
In the service, you can have a literature circle among friends, for example, fill in crossword puzzles or just have a coffee and chat remotely.
– Interactivity has been a very important point for us. That is, the service does not only have videos, but there you can watch content together with friends or relatives and chat remotely, as if in virtual warmth. If an elderly person can no longer leave home or has long distances, they can still enjoy things like this together, explains Wenell.
Content for the service is produced by municipalities, welfare regions and third sector providers, as well as commercial content producers. The service can also contain content from, for example, YouTube. The idea is to offer content that is specifically interesting to the elderly easily from one service.
The service can also be used, for example, in service buildings, where content can be viewed in a large group.
Increase equality and inclusion
– The goal was to enable elderly people who stayed in their homes for health safety reasons to access culture, and on the other hand to offer earning opportunities to actors in the art and culture sector, especially those in the performing arts who were practically unemployed during the corona virus.
Since then, it has been understood that the service is important in times other than corona.
– Not everyone lives in cities and cannot access physical cultural services. Not everyone has the funds to spend on cultural services. This increases equality in accessing various services and the participation of the elderly in society, Hanski says.
The service is also believed to develop the digital skills of the elderly.
– The fact that it is an easy-to-use service that offers interesting content can lower the threshold to also use digital transaction services, such as Kela and the bank. The elderly themselves have said in the customer councils that the service could be useful for this as well.
*You can discuss topic 2.1. until 11 p.m.*
