Rita Liepina – Latvia 🇱🇻

My name is Rita Liepiņa. I am 62 years old and already retired, pensioner. I work for the association Culture and Education Studio Talent City, where we organise various leisure activities for young people and children during school holidays.

What motivated me to get involved in the Senior Awards programme? From the Board chairperson  of the organization Grannies.lv  Ināra Pučuka I found out about the Senior Award programme and the possibility to participate in it, and I thought – why not? And I applied.

As we are in organizing the leisure activities , it was not difficult to choose my field of activity. I chose to organise several leisure activities for children and school youth. I decided that I would spend 10 hours preparing, organising and evaluating the event. I organised outdoor activities for children. I learnt how to plan an event properly. My colleagues helped me to think it all through, as well as to calculate and prepare the necessary materials. And the work itself was very interesting. There were workshops as well.

I realised that I like to organise a lot of things, I like being around young people and helping them to develop their leisure activities. I would definitely take part in such a programme in the future. It is such an opportunity for seniors to volunteer and learn new skills at the same time. This Senior Awards programme is in its infancy, but if there is an opportunity to participate in the Senior Volunteer Awards programme, I will definitely apply and take advantage of it.