Active Aging of Elderly Reinforcement through Young Happy’s Activities and Participation of Elderly

Abstract

This research aims to study Young Happy’s activities provided for the elderly who are members, to examine the participations of the elderly members effecting active aging reinforcement. This research is a qualitative study based on documents, participant observation, and in-depth interview. There were fifteen participants: two Young Happy’s founders, three Young Happy’s workers, and ten elderly members of Young Happy. The findings reveal that

1. There are two kinds of activities for the elderly held by Young Happy. First, offline activities or events consist of six aspects: Happy Trip, Happy Job, Happy Health, Happy Value, Happy Time, and Happy Tech. Second, online activities or content creation called “Nanasara” consist of six categories: Yangthansamai, Yangyimdai, Yangrakayu, Yangsukchai,Yangkhaengraeng, and Yangmifai.


2. The elderly’s participation. The participation displays three levels in which most of the elderly take part: information receivers, senders, and creators. First, the information receivers’ main responsibilities are receiving different kinds of information such as attending the offline activities (event), reading the information in “Nanasara” (content), and checking activity schedules via Young Happy’s online channels. Second, the information senders’ duties are presenting issues they are interested and exchanging their opinions about Young Happy’s activities. Also, propagating the activities, sharing knowledge they earn from Young Happy to other people, and creating media to share among themselves are under their responsibilities. Third, some of the elderly play a role as Young Happy’s planners and policy makers, which are considered the highest level of the participatory communication. They engage in creating new activities then presenting to the founders, managing the activities, coordinating between workers and members, and being a part of Young Happy’s working team.