Department of Arts and Culture, City of Munich

Within the framework of the EU program Erasmus+, the strategic partnership Creative Ageing dealt with the topic of cultural participation opportunities for seniors in difficult circumstances.
How can barriers to participation be overcome for this target group? How can low-threshold access be created? What strategies are needed for change? Staff from the city councils of Munich, Berlin (DE), Brighton & Hove (UK), Ostend (BE), Gothenburg (SE) and Leeuwarden (NL) will share their local strategies, research and good practice together with arts education practitioners.
Cultural education is an indispensable part of general education and lifelong learning. It can enable people from childhood to older age to develop their creative and personal potential, actively shape society and experience community. Cultural participation fights social isolation and promotes health and well-being as well as social cohesion.
It is therefore no surprise, that, in view of increased life expectancy and demographic change, cultural education is increasingly being discovered throughout Europe also for people of older age. Not only in culture and education, but also in the fields of leisure, health and care, as the strategic partnership shows. This field of »cultural geragogy« is still quite young, and yet numerous studies show that cultural education of older people and seniors make an immense contribution to quality of life, health and well-being. In 2019, WHO published over 3,000 evidence-based studies verifying this effect.
From the very beginning the project group was convinced that in order to reach out to the target group and actively involve them in cultural projects, it is necessary to work together across sectors and gain mutual knowledge of potentials and needs in administrative structures and methodological practices. In transnational meetings, the partner cities presented their cultural and social projects, funding programs and research results to each other; they experienced practical workshops together and exchanged ideas with the target group.
Following the project, the challenge for each of the partners involved is to figure out how to transfer and use what they have learned. The project group will continue to discuss and network beyond the project duration from 2023.