Strabane University of the Third Age

Public benefits

providing a well structured organisation for people in the third age to find company support and opportunities to learn. Loneliness and isolation are very often the lot of people in the third age. This in turn can lead to depression and ill health. Our purpose is to provide mental and physical stimulation as an escape from loneliness, an

opportunity for social interaction, lifelong learning, a sense of achievement and general empowerment. The best way to demonstrate the benefits is to listen to our members and organise activities that interest them. I find our members are very vocal in their appreciation of activities laid on and when we organise food and the opportunity to socialise, the attendance speaks for itself - we normally have a full house. An example I can personally quote was several years back I organised a creative writing course with Patrick Kearney (Author) as our mentor. A member came to me at the end of the 10 weeks and thanked me for introducing her to creative writing but she actually thought she was joining a caligraphy class and was dismayed when she realised the class was about writing as she thought she wouldn't be able to keep up. However, she found in herself a new talent and is still in our creative writing group and is an amazingly descriptive writer and thoroughly enjoys her new craft. There is no private benefit or harm.

What your organisation does

we provide classes and learning opportunities eg.writing group art class felting class geneaology gardening class computer for beginners we also provide opportunities for social interaction to combat loneliness and isolation and generally support each other