Does feeding your brain help you age well? For Assunta Aplogan, president of the Inter-ages University (UIA) of Parthenay and Pays de Gâtine, and Danielle Simonet, secretary of this association which organizes two monthly conferences accompanied by screenings from fall to spring at the Le Foyer de Parthenay, the answer does not allow any hesitation as to the benefits of intellectual nourishment on aging.
“Do not remain intellectually isolated”
“Intellectual stimulation helps us age in good physical and mental health. The fact of taking the step and moving around, meeting other people in a friendly atmosphere inevitably has a beneficial effect. As we get older, we certainly have a greater thirst for these discoveries to feed our curiosity and not to remain intellectually isolated. Assunta Aplogan plaid. “In the little question-and-answer game at the end of the conferences, we can clearly see how the activity reveals true curiosity,” rejoices Danielle Simonet.
Political or religious subjects are deliberately avoided. But the spectrum of themes covered is very broad, from geography to culture, including the environment and even the economy.
Plus 10% members
Arriving in Parthenay in 1981, the president born in L’Aquila in Abruzzo in Italy, and the secretary of the association retired since 2017, know what they are talking about when it comes to health and aging. The first was a liberal nurse and the second responsible for the elderly service at the intercommunal social action center (CIAS) of Parthenay-Gâtine. Their joint experiences with this service and home care in particular have taught them a lot about the virtues of cognitive stimulation for seniors.
Arriving at the responsibilities of the association in 2017 for the president and in 2019 for the secretary, they have even innovated to stimulate a new appetite among their members. This tandem, which relies on a lively programming commission, has noted “that at the time of Covid, older people left the association but after Covid, more and more young retirees joined us, creating real renewal”, summarizes Assunta Aplogan. So much so that, slowly but surely, in this dashing association in Parthenay the average age slips from 70 to just over 60.
This second youth is reflected in the figures. With a 10% increase in members to reach 157 people this year while the membership campaign at the beginning of the year has just opened, each session has an average of around a hundred spectators.
-From Holland to Cantal
Enough to also stimulate the association’s appetite. Every year, she already organized an outing like that of the royal visit scheduled for May 13, 2025 to the Palace of Versailles. But in addition, last year, the UIA launched a slightly longer stay, a little further away. And the proposal was a hit. There were forty-three of them who went to smell the tulips of the Dutch flatland up close for three days. At the end of May 2025, direction Cantal this time, at the time of transhumance.
“I like this sharing with speakers of a very good level. I go there more for the cultural aspect because it allows me to discover environments or artists that I would not necessarily have gone to explore alone,” confides Michel Bonnessée, a good-footed, good-eyed octogenarian, retired teacher in Parthenay, member of the Inter-Ages University when he is not wandering the paths of Gâtine in the heat of his naturalist passion.
Like Michel, quite a few of them are retired from teaching. But not only that. At 60% female, this audience is rather heterogeneous. This therefore opens up a lot of horizons. The active forces of the association who ruminate on the new developments to come conceal in their little boxes, for example, a quivering desire to open slots for English courses.
Next conference, Tuesday January 21, 2025 (2:15 p.m.), “Who (still) governs the world? A global geopolitics in full territorial recomposition” by Dominique Royoux. Entrance fee to conferences: €4 members; €8 non-members; €1 for schoolchildren and job seekers. Such. 06.36.90.49.03; email: [email protected]
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