HelpAge International in Vietnam wins Healthy Aging Prize for Asian Innovation

The HAPI on July 27 announced the grand prize and the second prize winners of the first HAPI award. The awardees were selected from more than 130 applicants from 12 countries and regions under three categories.

• Technology & Innovation: New technologies/techniques that encourage healthy and productive ageing, that improve care or that provide greater efficiency, safety, or convenience

• Community-Based Initiatives: Community-based approaches – including intergenerational approaches – to keep older adults healthy, active, engaged, and/or safe

• Supporting Self-Reliance: New ways to help older adults maintain, improve, or restore physical and mental functions, that assist them as those functions deteriorate, or that build resilience

The grand prize is awarded to three exceptional organizations.

Technology & Innovation:

• Foundation for Older Persons' Development (FOPDEV) | Thailand

Buddy HomeCare: Community-Based Healthcare Management and Monitoring System

Buddy HomeCare has developed a mobile app-based system for healthcare management and monitoring, including health screenings, individual healthcare programme design, and follow-up. This technology serves as the key tool in a programme that provides impoverished youth with training to be caregivers, while also providing older people with cost-effective, high-quality homecare services.

Community-Based Initiatives:

• HelpAge International in Vietnam | Vietnam

The Intergenerational Self-Help Club (ISHC) Development Model

Since 2006, HelpAge International in Vietnam and local partners have piloted the ground-breaking Intergenerational Self-Help Club (ISHC) model – community-based organisations that promote healthy longevity through a range of inter-generational activities. The ISHCs now number nearly 3,000 nationwide and have become the largest care providers in the country.

Supporting Self-Reliance:

• Komagane City | Japan

Preventing Stroke Recurrence through a Hospital-Local Government Partnership to Support Patient Self-Management

The city of Komagane partnered with Showa Inan General Hospital on an initiative to help stroke patients better manage their health to prevent a recurrence. Skilled professionals work with patients and their families at the hospital, engaging them in setting and managing their own health goals, providing an app to monitor their daily condition, and consulting with them for the first year following discharge.

Second Prize Winners

The second prize was awarded to seven organizations.

Bueng Yitho Municipality | Thailand

STRONG Model Program

Grundtvig.inc | Japan

The Housing Complex as One Big Family / grundtvig.inc

Help Without Frontiers Foundation; forOldy Project | Thailand

forOldy Grandpa and Grandma Shop

Indonesia Ramah Lansia (IRL Foundation) | Indonesia

Indonesia Elderly Friendly Community Program

Korea Association of Senior Welfare Centers (KASWC) | South Korea

KB Good Memory School: A Senior Center-Based Dementia Prevention Program

SmartPeep | Malaysia

SmartPeep AI Elderly-Sitter System

Vietnam Association of the Elderly | Vietnam

Bright Eyes Program for Older People in Vietnam

HAPI is an award programme designed to recognise and amplify innovative policies, programmes, services, and products that address the challenges facing ageing societies. This prize is an initiative of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE), carried out under the auspices of the Japanese government’s Asia Health and Wellbeing Initiative (AHWIN). The selection committee for the award was formed with an international committee of experts.

The award is unique for its breadth of coverage, allowing a wide range of organisations – including community organisations, NPOs, associations, local governments, businesses, and others – across the region to apply and enabling them to showcase how they are innovating on a diverse set of interconnected issues.

HAPI was introduced at a pivotal time as Asia now faces unprecedented demographic changes. By 2050, East and Southeast Asia are expected to have 572 million people aged 65 or over – more than double today’s number. Countries in Europe and North America have undergone a similar shift, but it happened over the course of several generations, whereas the shift from an “aging” to an “aged” society in Asian countries will take less than 25 years on average. This has tremendous social and economic implications for the affected countries and for Asia as a whole, creating both challenges and unprecedented opportunities.

HAPI is an initiative of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), based in Jakarta, and the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE), located in Tokyo and New York, two nonprofit think tanks that are partnering on several projects under the auspices of the Japanese government’s Asia Health and Wellbeing Initiative (AHWIN). AHWIN was launched by the Japanese government in 2016 to promote bilateral and regional cooperation on a range of issues related to fostering vibrant and healthy societies where people can enjoy long and productive lives, to develop sustainable and self-reliant healthcare systems in Asia, and to contribute to the region’s sustainable and equitable development and economic growth. As part of that initiative, ERIA and JCIE are focusing on the promotion of healthy aging in Asia, supporting research, dialogues, and information sharing that can benefit people and policymakers throughout the region.