For the past 20 years, in partnership with University of Victoria’s Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health (IALH), the Eldercare Foundation has hosted a public forum to recognize the UN International Day of Older Persons. This year’s event will take place online on Thursday, October 1, 2020 from 2:00 pm to 3:15 pm via webinar.

To kick off the event, we will be highlighting the  contributions made by eleven local volunteers who have been selected as Valued Elder Recognition Award recipients for 2020.  Their lifetime of volunteerism in the Capital Regional District and beyond is extraordinary!

The lecture features a three-member panel exploring Social Isolation, Loneliness and Their Impact on Seniors’ Wellbeing. The panelists include Dave Korzinski, Research Director at the Angus Reid Institute, Dr. Verena Menec, a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences Rady College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba, and Eddy Elmer, a gerontology researcher and consultant in aging and mental health who is completing his PhD at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Collectively, the speakers will discuss who is affected by social isolation and loneliness and what impact COVID-19 has had, the impact of social isolation and loneliness on people’s physical and mental health and how they can affect longevity, and how social isolation and loneliness can be addressed.

Registration for the live event will open on September 9, 2020 and the registration link can be accessed at www.gvef.org/events . For those who are not able to attend the webinar on October 1, 2020, a recording will be available on Eldercare’s event page following the event.