Island’s first Celebrating Age Festival held at Rosaire Court
OLDER islanders have been celebrated at the first Celebrating Age Festival this week.
Housing 21, in partnership with Rosaire Community Association, Health Connections, and several island charities supported the event targeted at islanders over 55.
The festival took seven months to organise and Rosaire Court saw plenty of stallholders on Monday, including Guernsey Arts and the Guille-Alles Library.
‘The aim is to raise awareness of elderly people still having a life,’ said Rosaire Community Association chairwoman Rosemary Bishop-White.
‘Hopefully this might become an annual or biannual affair not always run by us, maybe somebody else could take a turn to run it.’
The Celebration of Age Festival allowed island charities and Rosaire Court and Gardens to combine and showcase what they all offered to the community.
Health Connections was closely involved with the event and said it wanted to be ‘a part of changing the narrative around age, celebrating age and seeing older people as contributors,’ said CEO Bella Farrell.
‘They are not a burden on the community but the most wonderful contributors.’
On the day of the festival Rosaire Court had its choir involved, and while it sang quite a few people came in and stopped what they were doing to listen.
The idea of a Guernsey Celebrating Age Festival originally came from Mike Logue from Housing 21. Having seen a Celebrating Age Festival in Bristol a couple of decades ago, he thought about bringing the festival to the island. It took four years to gather the funding required.
‘It allows people to remain independent, encourages residents to be active and encourages others to use the facilities here,’ said Mr Logue.
Rosaire Court regularly holds its own events within the premises.
This includes a weekly knit and natter and chorus and a games night once a month.
‘The residents of the home seem to be enjoying the festival,’ said Mrs Bishop-White.
