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How I experienced the SoLiLL-project

Hannie Pelleboer-Beuker

When the Arnhem group started the SoLiLL-project a year and a half ago nobody understood what working in a self-study group really meant.

However the subject Senior Citizens and Living was quite clear and everyone embarked on the task vigorously. The group of participants was divided into three working groups and I was in the Motivation group and during the initial three months we at least spend one afternoon a week to talk things over. You become acquainted with each one’s abilities as well one’s difficulties. This was taken into account when it came to dividing the tasks and everyone was given a corresponding task. It proved that people with very different backgrounds could produce fantastic results together.

An important aid was E-mail. The individual results could be mailed to the entire group immediately. If necessary the results could be perfected and corrected and everyone could be informed. I think that without E-mail contacts the exchange would not have been so easy.

It was important that all participants were interested in the subject. This resulted in one’s wish to pas on the experiences to other senior citizens as well as to authorities active in this field. It is too good to be true. The results of the research have been described in a thorough report.

A better ¨fine-tuning¨ would have been an asset to the exchange with groups from other countries, as became apparent in the second phase of the project, when the co-operation started to gather momentum.

Within our group we managed to form close ties and we regret the job being finished.

But if it’s finished it’s finished and one has to learn to say good bye.