Project description

UN goals:

Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Build a community in which the elderly can relax, learn their favorite subjects, feel free to communicate with other peers to avoid aging-associated diseases, and together participate in developing the country so that it will become more prospective, civilized, and liveable.

Social challenge:To begin with, our team – Back To School (BTS) witnessed that there are strong affections among elderly people in Vietnam to pursue learning interesting subjects in a well-organized learning environment but hesitate to enroll because of the age barrier. The social conventions in Vietnamese culture toward the elderly make it difficult to deal with this problem, as they are expected to look after their grandchildren while their son/daughter is working, even when there are some old people’s associations or hobby clubs for the elders. Creating an organized, cozy and same-age school environment for old people is our choice for this problem as it can greatly improve morale, temper, and at the same time help prevent several old age diseases related to nerves, bones, joints,… Secondly, Vietnam is forecast to experience a period of population aging from 2026 to 2054 and the issue of ensuring the cultural and spiritual life for the elderly as well as resolving generational conflicts in an aging population has not been given much attention. That may cause some negative effects and concerns for the younger generation in the family leading to economic stagnation. BTS aims to help busy young people to take better care of their parents so they can balance their life and focus more on economic development and contribute to society.

Solution idea:Our team – Back To School (BTS) plans to develop an education system for the elders in form of establishing schools for only people from the age of 50. We solve the problem of learning, experience and health monitoring needs of different customer groups by providing the choice of a suitable learning path for both the elderly who want to experience but still want to be at home with their children and grandchildren; and the elderly who want to study full-time at boarding school and enjoy health care services alike as in a nursing home. Our project divides students into 2 main groups. The first group is free students who will be able to choose their courses, use school facilities such as practicing room for yoga, traditional dance, gym, library, reading space, lab,… participate in different activities, contests and periodic tour programs… The second group is boarding students which are the same as group one but they will benefit from additional health care services, dormitory system and some other facilities for boarding students. For boarding students, BTS will provide student accounts and guardian accounts for a tracking app that connects learners with other family members to facilitate tracking of learning progress as well as health and other statuses.Finally, every student who takes courses at our school must commit to having enough health to attend, depending on which course they enroll in.