Yvonne Witter .

Area of work:

housing and care for older people

Specific field of expertise:

housing types for older people, trends in housing, care and welfare, citizen initiatives, informal care, loneliness, generations, residential communities, cohousing/communal living.

What does ENIEC mean to you?

A smile on my face!! Warmth, friendship, exchange of knowledge, but also of personal life. After an ENIEC meeting, I feel supported. It's fantastic to be with kind and great people who are also passionate about the topic.

More about Yvonne Witter

I only missed the first ENIEC meeting. But from the second meeting in The Hague onwards, I have always been there. With pleasure! I have fond memories of all the meetings!

I often took the minutes of the General Meeting, helped organise the annual ENIEC meeting three times (in Amsterdam, Madrid, and one online during the pandemic), and edited the ENIEC newsletter for years, together with Coby and other members at the time. I also worked with a number of (former) ENIEC members to create the booklet 'From home to home, guided by older migrants in Europe' (2018). That was so wonderful and fun to do! We included portraits of older migrants from different countries, along with their stories.  And together with some (former) members I wrote (2020) the booklet: Homecoming. Housing, care, and well-being for older adults with a migration background.

I love doing interviews, writing down stories, and immersing myself in someone's world. Together with Kees Penninx, I once described residential communities for older people with a migrant background. I think residential communities are a wonderful way of living and hope that many more will be created. In my work at the national knowledge platform ZorgSaamWonen, I also deal with the theme of housing and care. Actually, I have been doing this since I started studying. I studied sociology and social gerontology and have always done a lot of volunteer work for and with older people (such as at the De Hogeweyk nursing home in Weesp). My love for the elderly definitely stems from the good relationship I had with my grandparents.  From an early age, I have seen the value of intergenerational contact. I want to continue to work towards a society in which people (young and old together) enjoy growing older together in the way they want to, using their talents and feeling connected to each other.