Age Friendly Communities
Helping Ladysmith become an Age-Friendly community.
In 2017 and 2018, Social Planning Cowichan, along with our community partners which included The Town of Ladysmith, Island Health, the Ladysmith Resource Centre Association and the BC Community Response Networks, undertook a number of activities in order to identify ways in which the town can be more inclusive and accessible to its senior citizens, with the goal of securing grant funding that would be allocated toward improvements in specific areas around town. With population trends projecting an increase in the proportion of seniors residing within the town over the next 20 years, many citizens and stakeholders agreed that this was important work to be done for the sake of the
community's well-being.
The organizations involved in this project worked to connect with the community to evaluate existing services and take a deeper look at how the current infrastructure can evolve to meet the needs of an aging population. The most important part of this process was to engage with people in the community with a focus on seniors, elders, local businesses and service providers to identify what improvements could be made. Representatives from each of the project partners made up the steering committee who guided the project direction, activities and decisions. Due to the short timeline on the project, we focused on accessibility regarding transportation and scooters and social participation including communication and affordability