Sara Ronzi with some of the people who contributed to the exhibition
Photographs and stories which reflect the things that older residents in Liverpool like and dislike about their local community in relation to respect and social inclusion were displayed at the Museum of Liverpool.
`What is important to me as an older person?’ consists of photographs and accompanying narratives contributed by older people living in four contrasting areas of Liverpool (Princess Park, Allerton, Cressington and Anfield).
It reveals the positive aspects of the City which enable them to feel valued and part of their community as well as the negative aspects. Some of the photos identify what older people feel could be done to address some of the barriers that they identified.
University of Liverpool PhD student, Sara Ronzi, who undertook this project as part of her research, said: “This exhibition is an innovative way of to engaging with older people and finding out from them first hand what they consider to be important in terms of respect and social inclusion in Liverpool.
“This is the first time that this approach to stimulate information exchange between the public and those responsible for the city and its services, has been applied to this context.
“The exhibition aims to create a platform to enable dialogue amongst older participants, researchers, and city stakeholders, and it is hoped that the research findings from this project will be used to stimulate policy change that better reflect the needs of local older people”
The exhibition launch included presentations from National Museums Liverpool and Liverpool City Council.
The research and exhibition are funded by the National Institute for Health Research and forms part of Sara Ronzi’s PhD study entitled ‘How can we make Liverpool a better place to grow old and where people feel valued and part of their community?’.
Sara’s research is related to the School of Public Health Research’s ‘Age-friendly cities and towns’ project (http://sphr.nihr.ac.uk/), and is supervised by Professor Nigel Bruce, Dr Dan Pope and Dr Lois Orton.
Age-friendly cities are communities which create physical and social environments to support older people to age healthily.
