Making Life Better Together

Age-friendly Belfast

Make Belfast a city where older people live life to the full

Photo 2

The Belfast Strategic Partnership (BSP) Age-friendly Belfast team recently launched its Age-friendly Belfast Charter, asking Belfast organisations to sign up to help make it easier for older people to use services across the city. Translink were the first organization to sign-up to the charter.

The charter has been produced in response to older people in Belfast, who highlighted four key areas set out in the Charter:

  1. Customer Care – older people would like staff in stores to be friendly, polite and give them extra time when needed
  2. Communication – information on services should be straightforward and easy to find. Older people should be visible in advertising and depicted positively
  3. Accessibility and signage – older people should be able to move easily around premises
  4. Valuing an ageing workforce – older staff have training opportunities and support to stay in the workplace.

Signing up is easy. Here are three simple steps:

  1. A senior member of your organisation signs the charter agreement (see Charter for details) and returns to the Age-friendly Belfast team.
  2. Your organization is issued with a certificate and sticker to display.
  3. Feedback to the Age-friendly Belfast team should be provided on a regular basis.

Encouraging all Belfast organisations to sign-up to the charter, Healthy Ageing Coordinator, Elma Greer, said: “We are very positive about this charter –we feel that it will make a real difference to older people in Belfast through organisations taking some simple actions to remove barriers to inclusion. I would encourage all organisations to sign up now and help to make Belfast a city were older people live life to the full.”

She continued: “Signing up to the standards will also help organizations through improving customer care. Older people tend to be loyal customers. An age-friendly business can attract and keep customers within a large and expanding demographic.”

The Age-friendly Belfast team is working with a range of partners to implement the charter.

Gordon Milligan, Translink Chief HR & Corporate Services Officer, said:

“We want to ensure our services meet the needs of everyone including older people.  By signing the Age Friendly Belfast Charter we are demonstrating our commitment to providing services that offer accessibility, excellent customer care and high quality passenger information.

 

“Many of the service enhancements we have made over recent years have been welcomed by our more senior passengers such as fully accessible bus and rail stations; fully accessible buses and trains; and all Metro vehicles will soon be fitted with Audio Visual displays.

 

“In addition, we ensure timetable information is available in a range of formats such as large print and our own publicity material often depicts older people to illustrate their importance to our business. Over 2000 of our drivers are trained in dementia awareness as well as training to meet the needs of older people.”

 

“We realise the important role public transport plays in the lives of many older people across Northern Ireland and we will continue to work hard to ensure we offer attractive services for everyone.”

PHOTO CAPTIONs:

Photo I

Translink – were the first organisation to sign up to the Age-friendly Belfast Charter

 

Pictured at the Age-friendly Charter signing with Translink are (L-R): Gordon Milligan, Translink Chief HR & Corporate Services Officer Elma Greer, Healthy Ageing Coordinator and Mary Morrison, Chair of the Greater Belfast Seniors Forum signing the Age-friendly Belfast Charter.

Photo II: Sign-up to the Age-friendly Belfast Charter

Signing up to the Age-friendly Belfast Charter is (L-R) Gordon Milligan, Translink Chief HR & Corporate Services Officer, Deborah McConnell, Workplace Campaigns Manager with Business in the community, Elma Greer, Healthy Ageing Coordinator, Mary Morrison, Chair of the Greater Belfast Seniors Forum and Terry Butler, Accessibility Officer with Translink.



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