SINGAPORE / Today / January 6, 2009
Young at heart and mind
By Neo Chai Chin
chaichin@mediacorp.com.sg
USING an automated teller machine (ATM) and operating a DVD player is a cinch for the tech-savvy among us, but for the older generation, it can be a struggle — which buttons should you press at the ATM, and how do you select the language in which to play the DVD?
Joking that he “faints” when teaching his 73-year-old mother to change the default language of Korean drama DVDs, Mr Samuel Ng, principal of seniors’ learning centre YAH! Community College said: “Those who are not so educated, like my mother, have problems even watching a DVD these days.”
To help bridge the digital divide, YAH! — which stands for Young At Heart! — offers IT courses for those aged 45 and above. They learn IT appreciation, and skills such as browsing blogs and uploading photos from a digital camera to a computer.
Since 2005, more than 830 of them have attended YAH!’s courses on ageing, IT, yoga, English and community participation. Some have even gone on week-long exchange programmes to universities in China. In the process, they have become “younger, in the sense that their minds are more active and they have more positive energy”, said Mr Ng, 42.
“The energy the elderly generate among themselves is a positive thing. It’s now very easy to mobilise them to do performances and road shows.”
Mr Ng recalled a woman who confided in him, that she was going with her YAH! course mates to Causeway Point mall in Woodlands — her first outing with friends in over 30 years.
She had been devoted to her family all this time and was learning to establish new friendships, he said.
Businesses are also latching on to the needs and potential of the silver market. This weekend, 100 exhibitors will be at the 50+ Singapore Expo 2009, a consumer fair for senior citizens organised by the Council for Third Age (C3A).
“Seniors have become increasingly adventurous and go-getting in adopting the lifestyle they want,” said C3A chairman Gerard Ee.
A 2007 MasterCard survey projected that spending by baby boomers in key Asian areas — Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, India and China — will hit US$616 billion ($905 billion) in 2015, tripling that of 2005.
Tour agency JP International Travel, for example, has seen a 10-per-cent increase in customers in their late 40s to 60s in the last year. Taiwan, China, and Europe are popular destinations, with the more adventurous signing up for Alaska cruise packages, said Mr Michael Lim, JP’s senior manager for leisure and corporate travel.
And fitness company Dynaforce International is looking to increase the number of silver-haired gym goers. It distributes a range of low-resistance exercise equipment currently being used at the Woodlands Polyclinic gym and Lions Befrienders’ Ang Mo Kio centre, and will soon equip and run classes at NTUC Eldercare’s Hougang Street 51 centre.
Dynaforce chairman Jimmie Lee’s dream is to have such fitness centres in every constituency here.
“The equipment can be combined into a circuit to allow for group exercise, so seniors get to do it socially,” said Mr Lee. “Physical fitness is about strength, endurance and flexibility, and if you have all three, you’ll feel young again.”
Copyright ©2005 MediaCorp Press Ltd
CONSUMER FAIR FOR SENIORS The 50+ Singapore Expo 2009
January 10 (11am to 9pm) and Jan 11 (10 am to 9pm)
Suntec Convention Centre Level 4, Singapore
Admission is free.
