MAKING A MAP OF AGING
After I stopped school keeping I started my own "encore career" by doing some research into how aging baby boomers might be able to "give back." I met with many of the leaders in the field of aging, including the director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, which offers wide range of university courses designed to keep our older minds sharp and stimulate our curiosity and the founder of The Transition Network, which builds local communities of women supporting one another through life's transitions.
For a few years I focused on transitions -- leading workshops for older folks in and about their own individual journeys. We had a name for it: “re-purposing.”
Eventually I became most intrigued with those who were opening up their organizations to older folks, such as Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative and Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute, where older persons get to design their own "second acts," or what the director of Encore.org, Marc Freedman calls "encore careers."
And eventually I became an "encore fellow" myself working in the Mayor's Office in San José, California. My assignment: build a mentoring program that would add value to a jobs readiness program for underserved youth in Silicon Valley.
All along I was intuitively doing something that I would later codify: I was "making a map" of the terrain called "civic engagement for older Americans."
Combined with my Skoll Centre assignment, my map-making yielded this conclusion: While upwards of 75% of aging boomers wanted to "give back," we want to do so part-time, flex-time, on our own time, within 15-20 miles from where we live (as we're "aging in place"), for there to be meaning and purpose and in some cases financial remuneration. That was a conundrum, and it led me to the next stage in my journey, where I would explore it more deeply.
For a few years I focused on transitions -- leading workshops for older folks in and about their own individual journeys. We had a name for it: “re-purposing.”
Eventually I became most intrigued with those who were opening up their organizations to older folks, such as Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative and Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute, where older persons get to design their own "second acts," or what the director of Encore.org, Marc Freedman calls "encore careers."
And eventually I became an "encore fellow" myself working in the Mayor's Office in San José, California. My assignment: build a mentoring program that would add value to a jobs readiness program for underserved youth in Silicon Valley.
All along I was intuitively doing something that I would later codify: I was "making a map" of the terrain called "civic engagement for older Americans."
Combined with my Skoll Centre assignment, my map-making yielded this conclusion: While upwards of 75% of aging boomers wanted to "give back," we want to do so part-time, flex-time, on our own time, within 15-20 miles from where we live (as we're "aging in place"), for there to be meaning and purpose and in some cases financial remuneration. That was a conundrum, and it led me to the next stage in my journey, where I would explore it more deeply.