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Fixing the World Welcome

0:42

to People Fixing the World from

0:44

the BBC World Service, a programme

0:46

that finds unique ideas changing our

0:48

world for the better. I'm Mayra

0:52

Anoubi and today we're finding out

0:54

about two different ways to help

0:56

older people to be more sociable,

0:59

with a chair that can climb stairs

1:01

and special university

1:03

apartments. According

1:08

to the UN, by 2050 there

1:10

will be double the number of people aged

1:12

65 and over. And

1:15

I mean growing old is inevitable,

1:17

it's actually not a bad thing.

1:20

But often it comes with

1:22

many changes to people's health and

1:24

lifestyle. In many parts

1:26

of the world, retired people are

1:28

very isolated which can affect both

1:30

their mental and physical health. And

1:33

being less active at this age

1:35

has been linked to chronic pain,

1:37

depression, dementia and many other

1:39

health problems. So the

1:41

solution? Well for starters we

1:44

need to find other ways to get

1:46

older people to be more active. So

1:48

how do you do this for people who might

1:51

be frail and have challenges moving

1:53

around? This is where our

1:55

first solution today can help. It's

1:58

happening in Spain and it's a

2:00

raging country where one out of every

2:02

five people is over the age of

2:04

65. Our

2:06

reporter Esperanza Escobano visited a

2:08

project in Barcelona that's using

2:11

a special chair to get

2:13

all the people out

2:15

of their homes and into the city.

2:29

I've come to meet Teresa. Like

2:31

many older people in Barcelona, she

2:33

lives in a beautiful apartment building

2:36

with a lot of stairs. There

2:39

is a lift on the third floor. She

2:43

can't leave home alone because

2:45

she doesn't have a lift on her building.

2:50

As you can hear in my voice, it is

2:54

not very easy. Teresa

3:01

looks like a million dollars. Her share has

3:03

been gone completely and she is wearing

3:10

pink lipstick. She is

3:12

90 years old. The

3:14

walls of her apartment

3:16

are covered from floor

3:18

to ceiling in her own

3:20

paintings, which she is keen to show me.

3:22

Teresa has lived in this

3:29

apartment for 62 years. She

3:31

raised her two children here. Then

3:34

the kids did what kids tend to do.

3:36

They grew up and left home. Then

3:39

in 2013, Teresa's husband died and

3:41

she found herself living alone for

3:43

the first time. So

3:46

how did you end up needing

3:48

the help of the volunteers to get

3:50

out? It was a pandemic that forced me

3:53

to stay at home. Before the pandemic,

3:57

I could climb the stairs. with

4:00

a full shopping cart right up to the

4:02

third floor because I don't have a lift.

4:06

So how long have you been without

4:08

leaving the home? One year

4:11

at least, the year of the

4:13

pandemic. A year. In

4:16

the years she was stuck at home, Teresa's

4:18

strength declined, and at the end of the

4:21

pandemic, she found she couldn't manage the

4:23

stairs anymore. She became

4:25

one of thousands of older people

4:27

in Barcelona who are effectively housebound

4:29

because they leave in apartments high

4:31

up and they can't get outside

4:33

by themselves. But fortunately,

4:35

help is at hand. Vácemal

4:38

Carre, which translates as Let's Go Down

4:40

to the Street, is a charitable

4:42

program that helps people like Teresa

4:45

get down the stairs by using

4:47

a special wheelchair. She

4:49

tells me about the first time they helped

4:51

her lift her flat. I was in

4:54

the middle of the year, I

4:57

saw the whole sky above my head. I

5:03

couldn't believe it. I was so happy. I

5:11

have to hand it to these volunteers, really.

5:14

I have no words to express my gratitude.

5:16

I'm going to the hospital for the next

5:18

day. Today,

5:24

Teresa is going to join her friends at

5:26

an eating club. Two young

5:28

men arrive at her door with the

5:30

stair-climbing wheelchair. Okay, here's my

5:32

chair. My chair? Yeah,

5:37

this works with batteries. It's

5:40

an electric system. This

5:42

is Felipe, the technician who operates the

5:44

chair. And only we have

5:46

to put her on the chair. And

5:49

then we turn on

5:51

the chair and make the movement.

6:00

closed. Teresa is wearing

6:02

a blueberry and has a red blanket

6:04

on her lap. The

6:10

special chair doesn't look special. It's

6:13

gray and metal and looks a bit

6:15

like a hospital shower chair. But

6:18

then at the top of the

6:20

staircase, Felipe tips it back and

6:22

two extra wheels pop out from

6:24

underneath the chair, extend down to the

6:26

step below and then retract. It's

6:30

almost like the chair is walking down

6:32

the stairs. It's

6:39

very noisy but

6:42

the movement is less aggressive

6:45

than the sound suggests. And

6:49

in less than five minutes Teresa

6:52

is down to the street. The

6:56

program doesn't just take people down the

6:58

stairs but also gives them lift to

7:00

wherever they need to go in the

7:03

city and organize its activities for them.

7:06

We just arrived to Las Cofidoras and

7:11

Teresa is going to meet her friend. Hola.

7:17

So what are you guys doing here?

7:29

You come here to speak with others. Of

7:34

course, I come here to make

7:36

friends. When

7:38

you get older you

7:40

need company even more than you

7:43

need food. We have our children

7:45

but times have changed and they live

7:47

far away. Poblesek is a

7:50

family for me. The people here

7:52

give me lots of love. That's

7:54

very important. Yes,

7:56

it's just like starting at a new school.

7:58

You don't know anyone. the first day

8:01

but by the end of the year

8:03

they're like your family. These three

8:05

ladies, Teresa's friends, are between 81

8:08

and 98 years old and

8:11

they all come from the local area

8:13

called Publicek. In 2009

8:15

the neighborhood's health authority discovered

8:17

that at least 200 people

8:21

were living isolated in their homes.

8:23

Their only contact with the outside

8:25

world was an occasional visit from

8:27

the district nurse. Bashema

8:30

Alcarrebos, Eva Alofre, recalls

8:32

the situation. They were just leaving

8:34

home to get an ambulance.

8:37

When they needed an ambulance they could leave

8:39

home. And that's how sad.

8:41

Yes and we found that there

8:43

were at least 200

8:46

people living like this and

8:48

there were people that they have been

8:50

in this situation for more than 10

8:52

years. More than 10 years. Can

8:55

you imagine more than 10 years living who

8:59

are going to feel sad, who are going

9:01

to feel their prayers and show sleep?

9:04

It was this dire situation that led

9:06

to the creation of Bashema Alcarrebos. Eva

9:09

tells me that at the moment the

9:12

charities helping 54 people from across the

9:14

neighborhood get out and about. Of

9:17

whom 16 require the stair climbing

9:19

chair. And they have

9:21

about 30 volunteers. I spoke to

9:23

one of them, Max, who together

9:25

with Felipe brought Teresa to the

9:27

knitting club today. When did

9:29

you meet Teresa? So I

9:32

met Teresa sometime last

9:34

year. The first

9:36

time we met it wasn't to go to

9:38

Ucozidores, we just walked around and we went

9:40

to a garden nearby

9:42

and we just had a chat and

9:44

then I bring her back up. Teresa

9:46

and her friends certainly seem to enjoy

9:49

being around Felipe and Max. But

9:51

the young men don't mind the

9:53

occasional social remarks. I mean

9:56

you know when you work with

9:59

like grandmas A lot of the time

10:01

they're like talking a bit flirtatiously

10:03

with you because they have the chance

10:05

to spend time with the

10:07

younger guys and they're very happy about

10:09

it. So they let you know as

10:11

much times as possible. But

10:14

it's all in good fun. Now

10:20

we're back at Teresa's home. She's

10:23

cleaning up the space with the caterpillar's

10:25

hair. And she thinks that

10:27

the sound that the chair makes when

10:29

it goes up sounds like music from

10:32

heaven. Vaché

10:36

Malcare is such a simple idea, but

10:38

it's one that works and it's still

10:40

working after 15 years. With

10:43

some kind helpers, a bit of

10:45

time and a clever wheelchair, it's amazing

10:48

what can be achieved. The

10:50

impact on Teresa has certainly

10:52

been life-changing. Back

10:54

in her apartment, she sits on her sofa

10:57

and I ask her how she's feeling. I'm

11:05

so in love with life. I'm

11:07

just so happy. I

11:10

talked to the other ladies, I laughed

11:12

and I saw the good things they

11:15

were doing at the session. When she's

11:17

just left, a few people on Facebook,

11:19

there are a number of people leaning

11:21

Back in the way. She

11:45

knows a lot of teachers and nurses,

11:48

but they are all younger than her.

11:50

And she loves to go to the knitting

11:52

club because there she can meet people from

11:55

her own age. So it's all

11:57

about the interaction, right? Yes, that's

11:59

it. like gather together and

12:01

having a juice and a croissant. And

12:04

a lot of that is because of the chair. So

12:06

now tell me more about this chair. How

12:09

many of these do they have? Well,

12:11

they only have one chair and

12:13

the charity doesn't own it. It

12:16

belongs to a small company founded

12:18

by Felipe and a colleague. So

12:21

when the charity needs it, they

12:23

call them and pay for it. So

12:26

where do they get the money to do all of this? So

12:30

they receive money from

12:32

the Barcelona Health Agency and

12:34

then different local foundations. And

12:37

do they have a plan to expand this?

12:40

Well, the program was copied in Cadet in

12:42

Andalucía. And in Barcelona,

12:44

it has been so successful

12:47

that it's been copied

12:49

to the rest of neighborhoods. So

12:51

now you can have

12:53

the service available in the whole city

12:55

with different charities. Nice. So

12:57

many more chairs. I

13:00

hope they do buy more chairs.

13:02

Yes. Great. Well, thank you for what

13:05

we've heard today, Esperanza. Thank you, Maya.

13:10

You're listening to People Fixing the World

13:12

from the BBC World Service. And just

13:14

now we heard about an initiative to

13:16

help older folks out of their houses

13:19

so they can carry on living their

13:21

lives and being sociable. But

13:23

what if we could go further than that? So

13:26

instead of just helping them carry on with their lives,

13:28

is there a way to offer them

13:31

new experiences and opportunities? Well,

13:33

somewhere that's famous for being full

13:35

of new opportunities and experiences is

13:39

universities. Our next solution

13:41

takes us to the US, where

13:43

there's a growing movement to build

13:46

retirement homes on or near university

13:48

campuses so that older

13:50

people can also enjoy some

13:52

of these experiences. Our

13:55

reporter Anthony Wallace joins me now

13:57

down the line from Phoenix, Arizona,

13:59

in the... US to tell us

14:01

more. Hi Anthony. Hi Myra.

14:04

Now let's start by understanding more about

14:06

this trend. What exactly is happening

14:08

here? Yeah so these are

14:10

called university-based retirement communities and

14:13

there are about 100 of them in the United

14:15

States right now and currently baby

14:17

boomers are retiring in huge numbers and

14:19

they want to stay active and be

14:22

intellectually stimulated in their retirement years and

14:24

so these places offer lifelong learning and

14:26

a lot of activities and

14:29

research shows that mixing young and

14:31

old generations together is good for

14:33

both groups. The youth get

14:36

guidance and mentorship and the older people

14:38

get a sense of fulfillment and purpose.

14:40

You visited one

14:42

university-based retirement community. How

14:45

was it? Yeah so it's

14:47

called Mirabella. It's right on the campus

14:50

of Arizona State University or ASU. There's

14:52

about 270 people living

14:54

there now all over the age of 62 or

14:57

with a partner 62 plus and

14:59

the residence of Mirabella lives pretty much like

15:02

college students so they take classes, they can

15:04

form clubs, they go to athletic events, music

15:06

events on campus and they spend

15:08

a lot of time interacting with people their

15:10

grandkids age. I caught

15:12

up with Jekka Kozwab who's 82 and Mary

15:15

Lou Walton 72 just in time for class.

15:19

We're heading to a class

15:22

called Film and Media Studies.

15:25

We have lecture classes Monday and Wednesday.

15:28

We have to screen a film

15:30

and then we write notes, apply all the terms

15:33

that we've been talking about

15:35

that week. That's a good way to say it. Okay

15:37

so how long have you lived at Mirabella?

15:40

I've been here a year

15:42

and when Steve

15:44

and I first retired we did go to a

15:46

golf community and we enjoyed

15:48

it very much but the

15:51

time just came where we

15:54

didn't just be around people

15:57

our age. Yeah

15:59

we just watched it. one or two

16:01

minutes from your doorstep and now we're in the

16:03

middle of campus there's people

16:05

all over so like a very lively

16:08

environment. We've got a

16:11

guy on a bike there's someone

16:13

on a scooter the students

16:16

are very kind and

16:18

I think they can see from our

16:20

gray hair yeah they probably shouldn't run

16:22

us over. A

16:25

few minutes later we were in the lecture hall

16:27

bustling with college kids getting out their laptops. Jekka

16:30

and Mary Lou took their seats in the front. And

16:47

it's not just film studies the variety of

16:49

classes that near Bella residents choose to take

16:51

is amazing. History of

16:53

the American Indian a creative

16:56

writing class existentialism class.

16:59

Inca Maya and Aztec

17:01

archaeology. Well Anthony

17:04

tell me do they do their homework? Well

17:07

they do but just because they want to they

17:09

don't get grades like their younger classmates. And

17:12

I talked more about the philosophy

17:14

behind Mirabella with Lindsay Beagley. She's

17:17

ASU senior director of lifelong

17:19

university engagement. I mean we are

17:21

living 30 years longer than we were a

17:23

century ago and we haven't figured out what to do

17:25

with it. It's like we

17:27

have this amazing human achievement of longevity

17:29

but we never set

17:31

to think about what should we do with those

17:33

extra years. And in fact we tend

17:35

to talk about it like it's a huge burden.

17:38

It's the silver tsunami. It's

17:40

an unpredictable catastrophe to avoid

17:43

instead of this incredible

17:47

source of human capital and

17:50

experience to leverage. So

17:52

I can see this being really fun and

17:55

beneficial for the residents. But now

17:57

Anthony let's talk about the younger students. How do they feel

17:59

about it? Yeah, a

18:01

lot of them have found mentors and friends

18:03

in the Mirabella residence. And

18:05

four ASU students actually live and

18:07

work at Mirabella. So

18:11

this is Michael Robinson playing sax for

18:13

some residents and giving them a little

18:15

jazz lecture. He's an artist

18:17

in residence at Mirabella, so he leads

18:19

music classes and does performances for them.

18:21

And he gets room and board in

18:23

exchange for that. But

18:28

it's not just a job. Michael and

18:30

the residents they hang out in their free time. And I

18:33

sat down with Michael, who's 27, and

18:35

one resident he is especially close with,

18:37

Shelly, who's 76. What's

18:39

it like to live here? It's wonderful.

18:41

I feel very lucky. So

18:44

do we. I

18:46

get more friends than

18:49

I ever had in school. And

18:52

we eat together, we cook together. Yeah, totally.

18:54

You came to dinner the other night and

18:56

Emily's. Yeah. I don't think

19:00

many people have that opportunity because

19:02

it's different. It's not like you're

19:04

our children, but you're our friends.

19:07

So my favorite question

19:09

to ask residents is to

19:12

me about your career. Because

19:14

the steps that people take to

19:17

get where they are now can be very illuminating

19:19

for somebody of my age, and

19:21

the infancy of those steps. So

19:24

all of this sounds great, but

19:26

then these are also two very

19:28

different generations, Anthony. Have they experienced

19:30

any kind of challenges or conflict

19:32

maybe? Yeah, and that's mostly had to

19:34

do with a very different

19:37

preference for nighttime activities. So

19:40

there was one pretty big

19:43

local controversy surrounding Mirabella. There's

19:45

a music venue right across the street

19:47

called Shady Park. It's a

19:50

beloved place in the local music scene. It's

19:52

very fun. But the noise late at night

19:54

was bothering some Mirabella residents. So

19:57

they actually ended up in a legal battle that...

20:00

dragged on over a year and the venue

20:02

had to stop doing concerts for a while. So

20:05

a lot of local people were really upset

20:07

about this and they basically said like, you

20:10

know, what is ASU think it's doing putting

20:12

a retirement home right next to these famously

20:14

loud college bars and dorms. Sounds

20:17

like a bit of a sticky situation. So

20:20

I mean let's go back to the residents now. How

20:23

much does it cost for them to live in

20:25

Mirabella? Yeah, it's

20:27

actually pretty expensive. So there's an

20:29

initial fee of at least $400,000 upfront

20:33

and that can go up to a million dollars or more.

20:35

Okay. And then on top

20:38

of that, it's at least $4,500 a month.

20:40

So it's really a luxurious place. You

20:43

know, there's nice restaurants in

20:45

there, an indoor pool. It kind of

20:47

feels like an inclusive high-end cruise. I

20:50

mean, I get that, but it's also really

20:52

expensive, which means it's not very accessible to

20:54

many other people. But it sounds like for

20:56

the people who live there, this is really

20:58

working. Yeah, yeah. And I

21:00

was there for just a few hours,

21:02

but it's clear that this is a

21:04

very lively and social place. Everyone has

21:07

jam-packed schedules and a lot of them

21:09

are trying new things that they're really

21:11

passionate about. I was really blown

21:13

away by one resident in particular that I

21:15

ran into. His name is Ted and

21:17

he's 87 years old. But

21:19

what classes have you taken?

21:22

Yeah, a wide variety of

21:24

primarily astrobiology, astrophysics,

21:27

cosmology, space

21:30

exploration. So just to

21:32

be clear, Ted wasn't a scientist in

21:34

his earlier life. He was actually a

21:36

superintendent of schools. And about 25 years

21:38

ago, he lost his son at the

21:40

age of 30. And that inspired Ted

21:42

to dive deeply into these big questions

21:44

about the nature of life and death.

21:47

He's even finished writing two books since arriving

21:49

at Mirabella just a couple of years ago.

21:52

I like to think that my new

21:54

book is a product of Mirabella, as

21:56

simple as that. I didn't start it

21:58

until I got here. And

22:00

there are a number of us here

22:02

that believes that Mirabella

22:05

promotes longevity in life.

22:12

So Ted is doing anything but living

22:14

out his golden years, just sitting around

22:17

and relaxing. On top of

22:19

all the classes and writing, he's even taking

22:21

piano lessons. And

22:25

then I tried to play here at

22:27

the holiday celebration, and I

22:30

got nervous. I walked down there

22:32

and there's a zillion people. Oh

22:35

man, what am I doing here? And

22:37

my whole heart started racing. And

22:40

they said, great, you

22:42

know, so it's

22:45

very uplifting. Well,

22:48

what a wonderful reminder that, you know,

22:51

age is just a number. There's so

22:53

much more we can do in this

22:55

life. So thank you for this

22:57

report, Anthony. Thanks, Mirabella. That

23:00

brings us to the end of today's program. But

23:03

what a treat it was hearing all

23:05

these ideas that are helping all the

23:07

people be more sociable. Are

23:10

there any projects doing the same where you live? Well,

23:12

why don't you go ahead and send us an email about them?

23:16

Send that to peoplefixingtheworld

23:18

at bbc.co.uk. And

23:22

join me again next week for

23:24

more positive news. Until

23:27

then, thanks for listening. In

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anti-racism protest turned the lives of 14 promising

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black women. I

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don't think we realized what the

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true flavor of Wyoming was back

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in 1969. Amazing

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sports stories from the BBC World Server tells

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the story of the black 14. There

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was a rubble, the federal flag being flown.

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It was different. It

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was definitely different. Search for amazing

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