On Friday the 13th of October, NSW Minister for Ageing Tanya Davies MP met with representatives of Australian retirement village provider IRT Group in Wollongong, to discuss the importance of improving lives of older people through the region, and the state.

Minister Davies sat down with IRT at Home CEO Gy Wallace, Foundation Manager Toby Dawson, and Acting IRT Chief Executive Sam McFarlane, to talk about her passion for mature workforce participation, up-skilling older women and the development of intergenerational programs that encourages lifelong learning and information sharing between communities of all ages. With just as much interest, Mr McFarlane said the Minister was keen to learn more about IRT’s 50 years’ experience in the retirement living, aged care and home care sectors, and its IRT Foundation.

“IRT enjoys a productive working relationship with the NSW Government,” Mr McFarlane said.

“As a community-owned organisation our purpose is to improve the lives of older people and collaborating with the Government on projects like Kemira at IRT William Beach Gardens helps us to do that.”

Mr Dawson also explained to Minister Davies the purpose of its innovative Career Check Up Expo for Mature Age Workers and Age-Friendly Illawarra Alliance, both of which are supported by funding from the NSW Government’s Liveable Communities Program.

“We’re really proud our Career Check Up Expos are empowering older people to plan their encore career,” he said. “We talked about the outcomes of the Illawarra Expo and plans for a third Expo in the NSW Northern Rivers.”

Mr Dawson said the Minister asked about plans to make the Illawarra-Shoalhaven the first region to be recognised as ‘age-friendly’ by the World Health Organisation, and if successful, how the model could be applied to other regions or the state of NSW.

“Wouldn’t it be great for NSW to be the first ‘age-friendly state’ recognised by the WHO?” Mr Dawson said.

“Of course, at IRT we like to dream big and it was great to spend some time with the Minister to brainstorm ideas like intergenerational housing, play groups in aged care centres and skills sharing programs, just to name a few.”