Penrhos combats loneliness for elderly

Three of our Year 12 students — Renee Rudianto, Menu Gamage and Jasmine Farghaly — have been busy tackling the problem of social isolation amongst the elderly, as a way of giving back to the community. The girls have been making voicerecordings of Collier Park Retirement Village residents reminiscing about their childhood, hobbies, family, past careers and key milestones so their life stories can be compiled into professionally produced audio files, as a gift for participants and their families to keep.

Renee, Menu and Jasmine make up the Senior Division Community Problem-Solving team in which students identify real problems and implement real solutions in a community — be that problem local, state, national, or even global. Before COVID-19, they were invited as national finalists to Brisbane for the chance to present their project to the national judges, a competition run by Future Problem-Solving Program Australia — a wonderful opportunity presented through Penrhos’ extensive co-curricular offering.

The problem-solving team identified social isolation amongst the elderly as the problem they wished to tackle,

particularly because it can also have further detrimental effects on health. They brainstormed and asked ‘how might we increase opportunities for older people in our local area to interact with the younger generation, so they are less likely to experience loneliness?’

According to the 2016 Australian Census, one in six people aged 65 and older live alone, which contributes to health problems, disability issues, sensory impairment and mental health issues. During the project, the girls not only listened to residents’ stories, but they also genuinely invested their time in building lasting relationships. In return, the residents were thrilled to bake delicious biscuits for our students, to show their appreciation each time they visited.

Meetings involved the girls interviewing and recording the oral histories of four residents, with the aim of stimulating the cognitive functions of the elderly participants. They edited the recordings into audio files to help preserve the memories through technology. The residents were very touched by the recordings and asked for more copies to give to their families, to ensure their stories were heard and remembered.

In forging these relationships, our students also inspired the Retirement Penpals Initiative as a further lasting community service activity for the Penrhos community to take part in. During this difficult time of COVID-19, it is especially important to ramp up our good citizenship — particularly to help the most vulnerable members of our community. Following a call to their peer students to put pen to paper and write to our elderly neighbours, we were inundated with students wanting to connect with letters of love, hope, support and goodwill.

As you can imagine, it’s been a lonely time for many residents in the village as their families haven’t been allowed to visit, and many don’t have the technology or aptitude for FaceTime, Zoom or House Party! We are so proud of our girls’ efforts, which have been most gratefully received and acknowledged with messages of thanks.

The girls presented the audio files as gifts at a very emotional meeting at Collier Park Retirement Village recently.