COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: Age Action “Care and Repair”

Sean Silke and Jennifer Connolly of Age Action at the awards, yesterday. Age Action’s Care and Repair programme was the winner in the Community Development category.

Age Action’s Care and Repair programme was launched earlier this year to provide services for older people in areas like gardening, home decorating, installing handrails and security locks, hanging curtains and changing plugs, fuses and light bulbs – jobs often too small for a professional tradesperson to take on. All the work is done by a team of volunteers working for the programme, which also offers a trades referral service, maintaining a register of reliable tradespersons who can be recommended to those looking for services beyond the scope of the programme.

The programme includes a quote check service, where a volunteer visits the home of the older person, assesses a job and gives an informed opinion on quotations from tradespeople, as well as a care service, a home visiting service to provide social contact to those at risk of isolation. The project, planning for which began in Autumn last year, with the first contact with clients getting under way in March of this year, is currently providing a service in a number of areas around Dublin and Galway city. Currently operating with funding from Irish Life, there are plans to roll out the scheme nationally over the next three years, and to expand the programme to areas outside its catchment area

Highly commended:

• “A” district senior citizens’ holiday fund
• Clondalkin community recycling initiative
• ISPCC Leanbh