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Subjective Wellbeing/125
Subjective Wellbeing among Third Age Citizens
A Magics (Managing and Generating Income for Community Services)
Experiment, Ernakulam, Kerala

* Susan George ** Sebastin K.V

Abstract

Mental wellbeing is a vital aspect of healthy and productive life. For third age
citizens, mental wellbeing in many ways is threatened due to reduced social relations
due to which they experience isolation. By means of ‘symbolic interactionism’,
individuals create and maintain societal relations through face-to-face, repeated,
meaningful interaction(Fuller, 2016) This study looks at the possibilities in this
regard through ‘age friendly college’ for enhancing ‘subjective well-being’ of the
elderly. Age friendly college is an intervention with the aging section of the society
by student volunteers for three months covering 45 hours. One-to-one teaching-learning
method is followed. Other programmes like arts-sports days, picnics, and festival
celebrations were organised to help the participants to express their talents, ideas
and interests. The intervention was meant to (i) help the senior citizens to use social
media to build relationships (ii) to introduce to them the facilities of e-governance,
e-banking, online payments and purchase which make them feel more independent
and capable in their old age. It was an intervention research and was subjected to an
experience based on which the study have been evaluated. This intervention is
undertaken at MAGICS (Managing and Generating Income for Community Services)
based at Ernakulam District in the state of Kerala. The results indicate that age
friendly college intervention has showed positive impact on the well-being of those
who underwent the experience.Well-being score before the intervention and after the
intervention showed remarkable difference and drastic growth of wellbeing are
recorded from the respondents.

Keywords: Mental wellbeing, Age friendly college, teacher-learner group, youthful
ambience

Introduction

MAGICS (Managing and Generating Income for Community Services) is an NGO
founded in May 2015 by a group of four likeminded Youth who are social work
*MAGICS, Ernakulam, Kerala, Email: susan.george95@gmail.com
**Associate Professor, School of Social Work, Roshni Nilaya, Mangaluru, Email: sebshaila@gmail.com

Adelaide Journal of Social Work, 4:1 (2017) : 125-137