Experts share vision on Creating Age-Friendly Communities at launch conference of CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing

10/08/2015

As Hong Kong faces a rapidly ageing population, with one-third of its residents forecast to be 65 or over by 2041, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust has proactively responded to the rapidly increasing demand for elderly services by funding a HK$12 million donation to set up the CUHK Jockey Club Institute of Ageing (“IoA”).

The donation also covers a launch conference for the Institute under the theme of “Creating Age-Friendly Communities”, with local and overseas experts sharing ideas on how to build an age-friendly city. Today (8 October), Club Deputy Chairman Anthony W K Chow joined Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung and Vice-Chancellor and President of The Chinese University of Hong Kong Professor Joseph Sung at the opening of this event.

Mr Chow noted that the Club’s Charities Trust had already been proactive in addressing the challenges of the ageing population by launching the CADENZA project with academic institutions, Government departments and non-governmental organisations as early as 2006 to explore and pioneer new approaches to elderly care. More recently, it had funded the establishment of IoA last year. “It is our belief that the elderly sector needs to shift towards a more preventive approach – in particular by promoting active, healthy, and more socially-inclusive ageing, which extends the healthy years of the elderly and delays their need for care, thereby improving their quality of life,” he explained. “Later this year, the Trust will collaborate with various partners to implement several initiatives to help build Hong Kong as an age-friendly city, so as to cater for the various needs of our older generation.”

“Elderly for Care” is one of the strategic focus areas for the Charities Trust in the next three to five years. In a presentation at today's conference, the Club’s Executive Director, Charities and Community, Leong Cheung, gave further details of the Elderly for Care strategy being developed by the Club. In particular, he said, it focused on promoting active ageing, and in support of building the awareness amongst younger generations of what they could do to help. The intention was to enable the elderly to maintain a higher degree of physical independence and mental well-being as they went through the ageing process, while at the same time promoting inter-generational harmony by engaging the support of younger people.

Under the theme of “Creating Age-Friendly Communities”, the conference brought together prominent scholars from the United States, Japan, Singapore, Mainland China and Hong Kong as well as participants of renowned not-for-profit organisations to share their vision. Topics covered in the conference included Redesigning Communities for an Aged Society, the Age-Friendly City movement led by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, Frailty and Geriatric Syndromes, and Age-Friendly Hospital and Services.

IoA is run by Professor Jean Woo, Director of “CADENZA: A Jockey Club Initiative for Seniors”. The Institute is actively pursuing community outreach initiatives, research projects and knowledge transfer programmes that contribute to promote active ageing. The Institute also collaborates with the Elderly Commission, NGOs and other universities to implement projects that tackle issues related to the quality of care and services for the elderly in a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary manner.

The Charities Trust is dedicated to improving the life quality of Hong Kong's senior citizens and has contributed over HK$1.15 billion to the well-being of the elderly in the past decade. Recently, the Trust commissioned IoA to evaluate the elderly’s quality of life based on the Global AgeWatch Index reports, and develop an AgeWatch Index specifically for Hong Kong that can provide an objective and comparable measurement over the years to show achievements in various areas and reflect improvements to the well-being of the local elderly population. In addition, the Trust-initiated Age-Friendly City project will see the Trust cooperating closely with four of Hong Kong’s Gerontology research institutes –IoA, Sau Po Centre on Ageing (The University of Hong Kong), Institute of Active Ageing (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) and Asia-Pacific Institute of Ageing Studies (Lingnan University) to assess the current situation of age-friendliness in 8 pilot districts and identify potential areas for improvement.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club

Founded in 1884, The Hong Kong Jockey Club is a world-class horse racing operator and Hong Kong’s largest community benefactor, as well as one of Asia’s most prestigious membership clubs. Operating as a not-for-profit organisation, the Club allocates its surplus funds for charitable and community projects. In 2014/15, its donations reached a record $3.87 billion, and in the last decade alone it supported over 1,300 projects. The Club is also Hong Kong’s largest single taxpayer, contributing a record HK$20.05 billion in 2014/15. With about 70% of its revenue given back to society every year through donations and tax contributions, The Hong Kong Jockey Club delivers a significantly higher return to the community than any other racing and/or sports betting organisation in the world. As a socially responsible organisation, the Club helps Government combat illegal betting and advocates responsible gambling. The Club is also one of Hong Kong’s largest employers with over 24,000 full-time and part-time staff. Committed to global excellence and giving back to society, the Club is always “riding high together for a better future” with the people of Hong Kong.