Third Age Foundation

Third Age is an organisation which promotes and celebrates the contribution of older people to Irish life. It has over 800 volunteers who give their time and expertise variously throughout Ireland as active listeners, tutors, advocates, befrienders, nutritionists - and more. This work impacts positively on thousands of people of all ages.

The Third Age Foundation, based in Summerhill County Meath, is an older people's organisation, run by older people for older people. The Third Age Foundation empowers and enables its members, presenting new ideas, opening up new possibilities.

Everyone is welcome at the Third Age Foundation. Members are not asked for a birth certificate, an address or a country of origin, but organise and take part in intergenerational and intercultural projects, partnership projects with a local long-stay residential care facility and a local Traveller group, lifelong learning, drama, I.T., health and fitness project, Failte Isteach Project... the list is endless.

The Third Age National Programmes include:
- Senior Help Line: A national confidential telephone listening service for older people is provided by older trained older volunteers. LoCall 1850 440 444, available all day and evening, 365 days a year;
- Failte Isteach: 400 older volunteers provide free conversational English class each week to over 1,000 students in 35 centres throughout Ireland;
- The Way We Were: An intergenerational project in which Third Age members create and host an exhibition of early artifacts to primary schools;
- Eating into the Future: Established in partnership with the H.S.E., in which trained older people pass on advice on menu planning, shopping and cooking to older people and their families;
- Men’s Shed: A befriending service in which older men are encouraged to become engaged in their local communities.

For more information, please visit: http://www.thirdagefoundation.ie/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,48/

Sarah Ann McGrath