Five new initiative groups of elderly people will be organized in the Vitebsk region

Five new initiative groups with the active participation of elderly people will be organized in the Vitebsk region this year. This was announced today during a round table discussion on the problems of realizing the social potential of elderly people in volunteer and charitable activities by Tatyana Drobysh, chief specialist for organizational and methodological work of the regional organization of the Belarusian Red Cross Society, as reported by BELTA correspondent BELTA.

The initiative groups will be created within the framework of the project "Strengthening the Sister of Mercy Service" with the financial support of the Swiss and German Red Cross. "It is planned to organize initiative groups with the active participation of elderly people in the regions of the oblast. The directions of their activities largely overlap. Elderly people want to receive additional education. Many current pensioners did not manage to master computers during their working lives. Now they strive to catch up and learn to use modern technologies for communication and obtaining information," said Tatyana Drobysh.

She emphasized that teenagers will actively participate in such educational processes. "This will be beneficial for both pensioners and schoolchildren. The problem of the generation gap is very relevant in modern society. People mostly communicate with their peers and know very little about the interests of older or younger generations," the specialist noted.

Currently, about 20 initiative groups of elderly people operate in the region. The first ones were created in 2009.