The starting idea was that older people’s volunteering will change the position of older people in society.The project was maent to encourage civic engagement of older citizens. The model developed by ISAB, the German partner, was concerned with experiential knowledge of older people and thus served as a basis for the LACE project. Experts agreed on the growing importance of linking lifelong learning with newly established and innovative roles and functions for older people – and to do so in a creative way.

The following models were the main starting points of the LACE-Program:

• The German model program EFI (Experiential Knowledge for Initiatives), developed by the ISAB-Institute
• Senior Citizen´s Consultants´Training, developed by the Higher Institute for Family Sciences (HIG), Belgium
• The „SESAM Academy“, developed by Netherlands Platform Older People and Europe (NPOE)

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Activities / Methods / Results

LACE initially analysed the potentially relevant existing programs on the matter. This served to create a practical guideline for the constitution of new responsible role profiles for older European citizens. The comparison of Best-Practice-examples from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany as to their transferability to other countries led to further pilot projects in Slovenia, Italy, Spain and Ireland.

A result of the project was for Slovenia a cluster of new educational programmes leading to volunteering work of older people.

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