to infinity and beyond| Planet, With People
Planet, With People
Colloquium
Summary
We propose a project to decrease the distance between the elderly community, creating an innovative and suitable channels. Suitable in the sense it is based on the exchange of letters between two people; and innovative because it gathers together two people with common experiences, who didn't have the chance to meet previously in life. The feature to match the Sender X Recipient is by their similarities, such as: hobbies, pains and beliefs in common, in order to help the elderly who go through difficulties as situations of loss, loneliness, automatic acceptance. Thus it is a great opportunity to disseminate their life experiences.
How We Addressed This Challenge
We have developed a service that will enable socialization among the elderly, not necessarily physically. The letter method will be used, which will define the Sender x Recipient relationship according to their similarity, such as hobbies, pains and beliefs. To make this possible, data collection will be carried out among the elderly in the defined region so that we can better understand their preferences. These data will be processed in order to identify similarities between them, and thus define their peers. In addition, a weekly newspaper will be produced with reports of other elderly people sharing their experiences, articles aimed at this age group and challenges in order to motivate them to interact with others. We understand that this socialization is important in this age group, as many end up losing their partners, the children are no longer as present in their daily lives, many no longer work and end up feeling the feeling of uselessness, and even thoughts of suicide. We hope to be able to connect and encourage socialization between them, without having to directly use technology such as cell phones, tablets or computers, something that many experience difficulties.
How We Developed This Project
The elderly are a group that grows more and more due to the advances in medicine linked to technologies, in this way, the target audience chosen for the project was the elderly. This group requires special attention because of its physical fragility and mainly mental health. Thus, to design something for this niche you need care and attention. After defining the target audience, we defined the possibilities for activities, programs and interests for this group and what they could do together, thus promoting greater integration and reducing the dependence on the use of technology for communication between them.
We use Nasa data, materials related to this age group such as, what are your difficulties, what are the biggest fears, Google Docs for data sharing, Zoom for meetings, Illustrator for slide development, Trello for monitoring for the development of each activity.
We had difficulty in deciding the proposal, as there were many interesting options; develop some non-face-to-face activity for the public chosen because of the physical conditions and social distance currently required (COVID-19); how data collection from those involved would be carried out.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
We have identified from NASA data that there is an increasing density of the elderly population over the whole world, and according to UN data, "between 2017 and 2030, the world may experience a 46% increase in its population over 60 years of age." (https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1689152).
A concern is needed not only with the physiological health of the elderly, but also with mental health. We have reports of people who had cases in their families, in which the elderly lost their will to live, becoming depressed, just waiting for the moment of death.
Project Demo
https://pt.slideshare.net/IsabelaAyumiNakashim/colloquium-238730760
Data & Resources
Center for International Earth Science Information Network - CIESIN
https://news.un.org/pt/story/2019/10/1689152
https://www.dicasdemulher.com.br/horta-em-casa/
https://www.sanarmed.com/saude-mental-em-tempos-de-coronavirus