An age-friendly Tāmaki Makaurau

news | 17 Apr 2020

A new report from Innovation Unit NZ investigates approaches to making Auckland an age-friendly region.

Auckland Council commissioned Innovation Unit to bring to life key opportunities for system-level collaboration to make Auckland a more age-friendly region, based on feedback from older Aucklanders.

Last year Auckland Council held over 20 workshops involving more than 600 people and a range of organisations on what might be done to make Auckland a more age-friendly region. The data was gathered under eight ‘domains’ defined by the World Health Organisation, plus a ninth of ‘Culture and Diversity’ to reflect the bi-cultural foundation of Aotearoa. Auckland Council then invited Innovation Unit to conduct analysis of the data to identify system-level enablers and barriers for how older Aucklanders live their lives.

age-friendly Tāmaki Makaurau

The highly visual report describes what a future Auckland could look like, as described by older Aucklanders, across the key areas of: home, neighbourhood, travel, information and support, contribution, social and wellbeing.

Overall, older Aucklanders said they wanted to:
– feel part of not pushed out of their community
– have an active role and purpose in their family and community
– feel respected and valued
– foster existing relationships
– meet new people who are like – or different from – them
– be a visible part of society, and
– have their individuality acknowledged.

“We need to cultivate the value of inclusion – it gets catalysed by disaster (but) should be an everyday thing: courtesy, kindness, respect.” – Participant

Download the full report below:

An age-friendly Tāmaki Makaurau