The Finding Home Initiative in association with Association of Neighbourhood Houses of BC hosted a project launch for our Elders Financial Abuse Awareness Dialogue Project at Heritage Hall in Vancouver. Over 60 community leaders from 20 different organizations participated.

Like the story of the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing every culture has fables that teach people to be wary of con artists or people that might take advantage of you. To kickstart our project launch, storytellers from Punjabi, Afghan and Chinese communities told fables from their cultures. We learned about a tricky fox in Afghan culture, a monkey and two cats in Punjabi culture and a wolf & goats in Chinese culture.

Next we had a wonderful lunch made by our volunteer caterer Janine Dunns with food & door prizes donated by Spud, Trumps Bakery, Pane Formaggio, European Breads, Two Rivers Meat, Indian Life, Horizon Distributors, Spectrum, Simply Natural, Miller Spings, Santa Cruz, Emelia and Rogers.

Desert consisted of a cake with pictures of the different fables donated by the United Way of the Lower Mainland. During the cake cutting ceremony members of our Seniors Counsel gave thier good wishes for the project’s success in thier own languages and placed their words on coloured paper attached to toothpicks on the cake.

Next, we went to Heritage Hall’s rooftop to play an Afghan Egg-Fighting game. After all, every good picnic includes a game! Afghan Egg-fighting involves two people, each with a hard boiled egg, rubbing their egg against the other. Whoever’s eggshell breaks first loses. The winner, keeps both eggs and wins a prize. Thanks to Rogers and Spud for providing the prizes.

Finally, as we ate cake and drank tea and coffee we had door prizes, followed by a Punjabi senior singing a beautiful closing song.

Thanks to Michael Becker, Director of Communications at the United Way of the Lower Mainland for his communications expertise and taking fabulous photos. Check out the United Way’s blog about the event here: http://owlly/22NON

The Elders Financial Abuse Awareness Dialogue Project is funded by the Government of Canada New Horizons For Seniors Program.

The United Way of The Lower Mainland Donated A Cake To Celebrate!

Afghan Egg-Fighting on Historical Heritage Hall Rooftop to Celebrate Project Launch

South Asian Seniors Enjoy Afghan Egg-fighting!

North Shore Group & Afghan Egg-fighting

Designing, convening and facilitating dialogues about sensitive topics like Elder financial abuse requires a great deal of responsibilty. For the Elder Financial Abuse Awareness Dialogue Project, we hosted another capacity building training day for partner organizations staff and volunteers 3 months before any of the dialogues began. Today’s training was about building your safety net prior to the dialogues.

The purpose was to prepare each project team should seniors disclose financial and related abuse prior, during or following any of the dialogues. Topics covered included what is elder abuse, signs and symptoms, who can you call for help, the do’s and don’ts of intervention, safety planning and much more.

During the training participants from Mosaic, Immigrant Services Society, John Braithwaite Community Centre, North Shore Neighbourhood House and South Vancouver Neighbourhood House shared stories about elder financial and related abuse in various ethnocultural communities throughout the Lower Mainland.

Many of the participants felt the word “abuse” is not appropriate in various ethno-cultural communities. Focussing more on the concepts of respect, dignity and understanding, will open more doors to safe and honest dialogue. In this way, any discussion of elder abuse must include an exploration of cultural safety and relevance.

Many thanks for our trainers from BC Centre for Elder Advocacy and Support, Vancouver Coastal Health and Community Policing. As well as to the Government of Canada’s HRSDC New Horizons for Seniors Program for funding the Elders Financial Abuse Awareness Dialogue Project.

Musqueam Elder Larry Grant Welcomes Participants