HOPE Foundation Newsletter March 2010

Posted by on 3 March 2010

As you will see over-page, the Foundation has awarded three scholarships for the 2010 academic year. They are all for important areas of research, but one proposal, that of Michael Annear especially intrigues me.

He proposes to evaluate in detail how neighbourhood conditions influence the physical activity and social life of older people. I suppose it 'rings a bell' with me because right now my wife and I are in the process of selling the family home of 40 years and looking for a smaller alternative. And we are trying to take into account not just the layout of potential houses and properties and what amenities are available and how close, but also, as far as we can discover, the ambience of the neighbourhood - including what the neighbours are like, levels of street violence, frequency of burglaries in the vicinity and so on.

We are very aware that in some locations in Auckland (as indeed in most major cities) older people have, with good reason, long been expressing fears about their safety in and around their homes. Indeed, one of the more common reasons people give for moving into retirement villages is the high level of security they enjoy there.

It will be most interesting to find out what Mr. Annear discovers at the end of his three years of doctoral study. It will doubtless shed light on just which aspects of a community are the most important for a vigorous and tranquil life. One thing it reminds us already is that we live in communities; we are interdependent. As the Jacobean poet John Donne famously wrote: "No man is an island unto himself, every man is part of the whole. Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." The HOPE Foundation is proud to be associated with research that promises to be of value to the whole community.

David E. Richmond

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