From November 22 to 26, on the first floor of the library, the immersive charity experience event "When You get Old" hosted by the School of Management and co-organized by the Communication and Planning Specialty and the Shanghai Jian Ai Charity Center, attracted many teachers and students to participate.
In order to experience the inconvenience and distress of the elderly in an all-round and immersive manner, the charity exhibition has designed six exhibition areas for the participants, including quotation reading zone, short videos zone, image token zone, sound experience zone, device graffiti zone, and device experience zone. It attempts to restore the intergenerational emotional stories behind ordinary objects in life by use of original public welfare short videos, audio, pictures, and videos, and reveal the bits and pieces of thinking in the fleeting moments, so that visitors can have a multi-sensory experience through "words, sight, images, sounds, paintings, and feelings" to realize the sublimation of cognition and emotion in a way of "comprehension, respecting, cherishing and caring". The original public welfare short film "Apple" played in the short videos zone was created by the "7+1 team" from Communication and Planning Specialty based on personal experience, allowing visitors to have an intuitive experience of the elderly with cognitive impairment. The forms of "token and images+ copywriting" and "dictating story+ extension" in the image and token zone restored the intergenerational emotional stories behind those inconspicuous objects in life. The quotation reading zone integrated thought- provoking stories into short quotations, bringing "immersive reading and thinking" to the audience. The sound experience zone used audio to revive the ten pivotal points of a person’s life and the experience and feelings of elderly patients with dementia. Visitors can enjoy the integration of audio and video by scanning the QR code. In the device graffiti zone, visitors can paint the friendly image representative -MEU Memory Rabbit for cognitive disorder to arouse their attention to the health of memory with the use of color.
The most eye-catching of the six exhibition zones is the elderly device experience zone. Students couldn’t stand upright when wearing the elderly device, buckled their backs, relied on walking sticks for movement, and wore simulated glasses of the elderly. They had blurred vision that required volunteer’s support. The left and right legs were tied to 3000 grams of sandbags,which restricted the lifting of the legs, and the arms were tied to 1000 grams of sandbags. They were too trembling to accurately pour the water into the glass when couldn’t see clearly. The experiencer Li said: "I felt that my waist couldn’t be straightened, my eyes couldn’t see clearly, and my legs weren’t able to move. It was difficult for the elderly. We have to understand them."
"This unique immersive public welfare experience activity of a sense of audiovisual integration not only showcases the creative works and professional skills of teachers and students, but also conveys their devoted interpretation of the true, kind and beautiful life, a deep experience of love and responsibility, as well as the recognition and pursuit of common spiritual values such as humanistic sentiments and social concerns respected by the whole society," said Ye Yi, one of the event curators and director of the School of Management, when talking about the planning of exhibition and the harvest of teachers and students. Yang Huangjiang, secretary of the Party branch of the School of Management, believes that the event successfully demonstrated the new thinking of the school’s teachers and students in education from the aspects of curriculum, practice, psychology, management, service, and organization, and provided new ideas for innovating students’ ideological and political work.
Yuan Weikun, secretary of the Party Committee of the college, gave a positive comment on this event. He emphasized that the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the 2035 long-term goal outline clarified the implementation of the national strategy to actively respond to the aging of the population. Serving "elderly and children" has become the consensus of the whole community. The event sponsored by the School of Management was not only a high-level, warm, and in-depth public welfare activity, but also a vivid manifestation and achievement exhibition of the college's comprehensive reform of "three overall education" in recent years and the exploration of "big curriculum and big ideology" innovative practices. It was of positive significance for guiding young students to establish new ideas, spread positive energy, lead new fashions, and strengthening their innovative spirit and practical exercise.
It is reported that in the five days since the event kicked off, more than 2,000 experiencers have been received. Teachers and students spoke highly of the event, and the participants spontaneously expressed their experience in the WeChat Moments, forwarding and publicizing the event to convey the preciousness of life to friends and families, and call for young people to spend more time with the elderly and treat them with respect and love.