Sterker, a social work organisation in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, has started a new project for elderly migrants funded by ZonMW, The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development. This project aims to facilitate exchange of expertise and cooperation by creating a local ‘learning network’ with different partners who work for and with older migrants. With ENIEC member Conny van der Aalsvoort as project leader, the network brings together a number of care organizations, including both culturally-specific and mainstream ones. In addition, older people and family carers with different cultural backgrounds are also members of the network, to ensure that the needs and wishes of local minority communities are met.
The aim of the learning network is to improve the local provision of services and information about health for older migrants. At the moment, there are already a number of networks in Nijmegen that focus on issues related to older migrants, but these are not always connected. By bringing members of these networks together, we will increase cooperation and deliberation between local stakeholders, with the aim of further improving the quality and accessibility of service provision to older migrants.
To achieve this, we will provide an online platform and a central source of information so that all information is easy to reach. During the year we will organise meetings for real-life case deliberations and masterclasses. Furthermore, we will arrange dialogue-meetings with specific themes for the migrant communities, so that they are well informed about the services that can be provided.
The project will last for one year, but we have started many of these tasks already in previous years and will continue to do so after the project has ended. However, the extra money that is provided for the project helps us to give it an extra boost in 2022. If you like to hear more about the project, you can contact me through: c.aalsvoort@gmail.com. I am sure we can learn a lot from each other’s experiences!
By Conny van der Aalsvoort
