THINK WORDLY. SERVE LOCALLY.

THINK WORDLY. SERVE LOCALLY. A quick way to burn through your highlighting pen is to download and peruse the World Economic Forum’s remarkable compilation of essays, Global Population Ageing: Peril or Promise?

 

The report’s “Introduction” makes a compelling case for giving priority to aging issues, and for absorbing the wealth of knowledge bound within. “In an historical context, population ageing is one of the most remarkable human success stories of any era, reflecting contributions of public health, medicine, education and economic development. But capturing and unlocking the full benefits of that success require that we adapt our perspectives and reform our institutions. The good news is that there is a wide range of behavioural changes and public policy responses to population ageing that would simultaneously avoid a significant dampening of economic growth and enhance the quality of life for people reaching older ages today and for generations to come.”

 

Eskaton’s approach to “think worldly, serve locally” has generated several contributions to the international dialogue on aging. The organization’s identity as a progressive aging-services provider is well-known throughout its service areas in Northern California, and even across the United States. The extent to which the brand reputation reaches around the world is both inspiring and humbling, as well.

 

This spring a 12-person delegation of South Korea government officials toured The Parkview, the Eskaton-managed assisted living and memory care community in Pleasanton, California. The research and advisory team was led by Lee Moo-Seung, president of the Social Welfare Foundation or, as his business card stated, “Director, Old Man’s Specialty Recuperation Facility.”

 

Australia frequently sends contingents to California to tour Eskaton’s communities and the National Demonstration Home in Roseville, and to meet with various executives and practitioners. The next walkabout is slated for next month.

 

Global demand continues for Longevity Rules, the book published by Eskaton in 2011. Recent requests for the compendium of provocative essays on aging have come from groups of retirement facilitators in Paris and Munich, as well as the Legislative Library of Support Services in Saskatchewan, Canada. Conveners of the United Nations Conference on Aging and Technology in Geneva also shared the text with participants. Notably, two of the book’s authors Laura Carstensen and S. Jay Olshansky also contributed multiple essays to Global Population Ageing.

 

Eskaton’s Longevity Rules blog posts (www.longevityrules.blogspot.com) and Twitter feeds (https://twitter.com/longevityrules) are trending worldwide -- most recently attracting the United Nations Committee on Aging as a follower.

 

And of course the international media coverage was overwhelmingly positive for the Eskaton “Thrill of a Lifetime” for Mino Ohye earlier this year, which reunited our West Sacramento resident with his brother in Japan from whom he was separated for six decades.