First step to open a university for aged people

The aged people from Moldova will have the possibility to receive assistance and necessary information from the National Resource Center for Aged Persons, which was inaugurated on Tuesday, November 14 in Chisinau. Svetlana Hangan, coordinator of the project told a press conference that the creation of the center aims at guiding the civil society and at elaborating informative-educative materials in order to widely inform the population about aging and about the active life style at this age. As well, the aged persons may visit the Center to receive the needed information. The Center is also endowed with library. Irina Baicalov, director of the “Second breath for aged and inactive persons” organization, which implements this project, told that the opening of this Center is the first step in developing a university for aged persons, using the model of the European and Baltic ones. The European Commission finances large programs for the creation of universities intended to this category of persons in the Eastern Europe, the cited source mentioned. Several old persons from different regions of the country, who were present at the conference mentioned about the necessity of the Center’s functioning, especially as regards informational needs. The Center was opened within the frameworks of the project “Strengthening the network of the civil society in order to reduce poverty and social exclusion of aged persons in Moldova”, which was financed by the EU Delegation to Kiev. The activity of the center will be financed until September 2007. At present, about 640 thousand aged persons in Moldova live, including 120 thousand in Chisinau. There are 600 mln persons of this category in the world. It is forecasted that within 50 years their number will triple.