From discovering a hidden talent to wanting to finish high school or start university, these are some of the experiences that prompted the workshops offered by the University for Integrated Older Adults (Upami) program to older people, who assure that “at this age we have to do what we want”, and they joke that “social projects lose money with this”.
“At this age we have to do what we want. The little or long time that we are going to live: take advantage of it. Now that we don’t have the children to take care of them, nor the grandchildren because they are already grown up,” Mirta Bernardotti, one of the program students, from the Buenos Aires town of Libertad, located in the Merlo district, five months after his 80th birthday.
Upami is an educational platform for people affiliated with the National Institute of Social Services for Retirees and Pensioners (PAMI) so that they can take courses and workshops for free and without the need to have previous studies.
Its objective is to promote “Personal growth, improvement in the quality of life and making equal educational opportunities effective for the development of cultural and vocational values”, assures the institute led by Luana Volnovich.
“Some people believe that we don’t know or that we don’t learn anything and that we do clubbing. It’s not like that”
The first person experience
Mirta would have liked to be a dancer, but for “patriarchal” reasons she couldn’t be: “My dad didn’t let me study in high school. The ones who had to study were the men. The woman had to go to the kitchen with her mother, wash clothes and iron. They didn’t let me learn”told this agency.
In the years when finally He attended high school, which was from 2013 to 2015, obtained a 9.47 average and did not miss “not a single day”.
For her, “it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can be 30, 50, 90 years old and you can continue studying” because “there is always something new to learn.”
His words are experienced “in the flesh”: in Upami he has already taken “a lot of courses”, among which are theater, computer science and cell phone use, while outside the program he also takes art workshops and participates in a choir.
“I come from economic sciences, nothing to do with art. But I had always wanted to do something about it because I realized that I had the ability to draw. It was also time to dedicate myself, now retired, and do what I liked”
In this sense, it has been dedicated to breaking down prejudices associated with older people with humor since it opened -based on a proposal from his grandson during quarantine- the TikTok account @laabuelahippie where he currently has about 350 thousand followers and whose universe has expanded to the YouTube and Instagram platforms.
“Some people believe that we do not know or that we do not learn anything and that we do clubbing. It is not like that,” he assured.
among those around 2,600 courses offered by Upami throughout the country in 40 national universities They include Argentine history, financial education, gender and dissidence, environmental education, new technologies and computing, singing and science, among others.
Economics and finance was what he devoted himself to professionally throughout his life Elsa del Carmen Ramírez, a 73-year-old woman from Florencio Varela who came to Upami in 2012 looking for an art workshop.
“I come from economic sciences, nothing to do with art. But I had always wanted to do something about it because I realized that I had the ability to draw. It was also time to dedicate myself, now retired, and do what I liked”, told Telam.
Since there were no people registered in the art workshop that Mirta religiously signed up for, A worker from the program suggested that she sign up for the radio one: “I signed up and also in creative writing. So in the radio workshop I read what I had written. That’s where I got hooked and never left the radio again,” she recalled.
In the program “Well from below”, broadcast by frequency 94.7, “La Sabrosita”, which she hosts with Osvaldo Aguilera, his 82-year-old colleague, deal with “social issues” and encourage their audience to study, if it is within their possibilities.
“I signed up and also in creative writing. Then in the radio workshop I read what I had written. That’s where I got hooked and never left the radio again”
A few years ago he was finally able to attend the art workshop and as a result of that She realized that “she had an impressive ability”: with her works she won awards both locally and in other parts of the country and this year she was encouraged to start teaching Art at the “Republic of Italy” School of Art. (Eari), by Florencia Varela.
“I do things that I never imagined. The workshops made me recognize that I had things saved that I had never squeezed,” he said.
Life never ceases to amaze her. just as five years ago she took her husband, Mario Romero, to join the history workshop, this time he invited her to one on sexuality.
The launch of the Second Quarter of #UPAMI at the General Sarmiento National University.
This policy allows affiliates to approach more than 2,600 free courses in 40 National Universities throughout the country. pic.twitter.com/hULlSbc9HQ— Universities (@PUniversitarias) September 20, 2022
“We were raised where those forms were not spoken, they were not said. The differences between one person and another were not even named with specific names, any name was put on. In the workshop they make you see that there are many things that you know, only that they have another name. In this way many manage to accept, for example, that their grandchildren have another gender than they think they have to have, “he said.
“Shut up mom because you don’t know” or “don’t say that because now it’s not like that”, are some of the phrases that older people receive in their daily lives that discredit their knowledge, Elsa shared with this agency.
“Here in the workshops no one is marginalized or separated. Everyone participates and the experience they have is highly valued. One realizes that they know a lot of things that not even they recognize as knowledge. That is learned in the interaction with the other”said.
For her, “social works lose money with this” -he jokes- because “they don’t take care of things anymore, that my big toe hurts, sciatica, here, there: they have other things in mind. They get ready and leave the house to meet their friends.”
