Antama

Introduction & utilization of donation

In August 2020, our Foundation made a grant to ANTAMA to support its activities. Due to the COVID Pandemic and the required social distancing, the first Elderly Festival that ANTAMA had organized for this year couldn’t take place and it has been postponed for 2021.

Given the limitations, two alternative projects were chosen to be performed online:

- an online intergenerational conversation between elderly and youth, where the seniors take the lead and help others, by providing advice to the younger generation on a variety of topics.

The aim is dual: to bridge the gap between generations and to give reasons to the elders to feel active and useful by utilizing their life experience and wisdom. The team of advisors will be elder volunteers, who will be offering their services either on their own (from their PC/ laptop/ tablet/smartphone) or with the aid of a facilitator (who collects the correspondence, meets with the elder and then transcripts their reply). Their answers will be reviewed prior to release to the correspondent and their name will be signing their response, so that a liaison will be formed between the two parts.

- a social responsibility program, where activity packs will be distributed on a weekly basis to recipients (80 persons pilot) of a selected municipality initially, through the program “Help at Home'' for the Elderly in Greece. 

The activity pack will be a bundle of various enjoyment proposals (e.g. crossword solving, game of rimes, spot the difference game, a poem, a therapeutical coloring picture), a personal letter from ANTAMA team and an occasional present (e.g. book, creative construction). The option to visit the recipients periodically is also examined, always under the “Help at Home'' umbrella and guideline. The aim is to encourage the active involvement of the elderly with minimum need of physical effort, build bonds with the external world via ANTAMA’ s presence, and minimize in this way the sense of loneliness. Due to the expected austere COVID measures during autumn-winter, the intention to expand distribution of the activity packs online is in the plans.