International Day of Older Persons, 1st October 2025
Published on 01 October 2025 12:58 PM
Towards the end of December, 1990, the United Nations General Assembly designated the 1st of October as the International Day of Older Persons.
The idea behind this was to highlight, and respond to, the opportunities and challenges of population ageing. And a recognition of the fact that many countries were experiencing an ageing population.
The theme for 2025 is “Older Persons Driving Local and Global Action: Our Aspirations, Our Well-Being and Our Rights”. It explores and highlights “the transformative role older persons play in building resilient and equitable societies. Far from being passive beneficiaries, older persons are drivers of progress, contributing their knowledge and experience in areas such as health equity, financial well-being, community resilient and human rights advocacy”.
The challenges that the day will highlight apply on an international, national and local level. Particularly in the aftermath of global events, such as the Covid pandemic and the Cost of Living Crisis, older people have faced challenges such as poverty and social isolation. And in an increasingly digital world, many older people are at risk of digital exclusion.
Governments, organisations, and societies are trying to find ways to address these issues, and to involve and include older people in a changing world. And that provision is expanded to ensure that the increasing number of older people who need support receive it.
In the Manchester context we have certainly noticed this, and demand for our services such as Advice, which helps people to boost their incomes through benefit checks, are busier than ever. We have also seen this pattern in our Counselling and Befriending services, with more older people seeking support with their mental health and with addressing their loneliness.
As a charity, we strive to respond to the needs of older people in the modern age. For example, on the back of our service users wanting to learn more digital skills, we sought ways in which we could deliver digital learning workshops. And last year, we partnered with Systems and Smiles, an IT company, to deliver free digital inclusion sessions to older people to fight digital exclusion.
Our Ageing Well service is another example of how older people can be directly involved in service provision to address issues that they face. Across our 13 activity groups, a range of activities are delivered. And the nature of the activities is influenced by the people that attend our groups. When our clients make it known that they want to take part in a certain activity, we do our best to make it happen.
An example of this is our Exercise and Nutrition classes that we ran in Gorton this year. Our group members were interested in learning more about both of these topics, so we sought funding to hire freelancers to deliver the groups. Feedback was very positive, with reports of improved wellbeing and social connection, and the classes were well attended. It goes to show that people respond well to being involved in activity delivery rather than simply being dictated to.
To go forward and help older people to be included in a changing world, it’s important that they are listened to and included in conversations around service delivery and support mechanisms. Hopefully, the International Day of Older Persons will encourage and highlight discussions around this at a time when these conversations are needed.
To read more about our services for older people, click the link below.