News
Thursday, 03 November 2011
Age UK Oxfordshire wins grant to promote arts and older people
Oxfordshire’s older people’s charity Age UK Oxfordshire has secured a prestigious grant from the Baring Foundation to create and run a national website on the arts and older people.
The £60,000 grant will fund an ambitious project to ensure that arts organisations across the UK are able to promote their activities for older people, share with, or learn from other providers of arts opportunities. This is a unique project in bringing together for the first time information on arts and older people. The website will be a first port of call for anyone involved in delivering musical, dance, theatre, painting and a host of other arts activities.
Paul Cann, Chief Executive, Age UK Oxfordshire, said: “We’re thrilled to be asked to lead this new project. Older people want to go on living life to the full, living their passions and enjoying activities like art and music. And there are many exciting arts companies who are really keen to reach this large group of people with their offer. We have a service to offer in connecting people with those opportunities”
David Cutler, Director of the Baring Foundation, said: “The Baring Foundation has funded the arts since we started our work just over 40 years ago. This website is part of a wide range of initiatives we are funding to take this vital area forward. Too often the arts are seen as an add-on or a luxury. We know, and older people know, that taking part in the arts means a huge amount. It is fulfilling, fun, keeps us active and makes us glad to be alive.”
Age UK Oxfordshire is working with two dynamic new partners to produce a website that will be attractive and full of valuable information: Spots of Time, an entrepreneurial new business which aims to make it easy for people to volunteer small moments of time to provide fun, creative activities in their communities; and Artz UK, an Oxfordshire-based firm, part of a global network, aiming to improve the health and well-being of people with dementia through the arts.
