No Evil Project and Worcester Senior Center Challenge Ageism

WORCESTER, MA, June 15, 2018 – The No Evil Project is helping Massachusetts push back against Ageism. State and city officials will join the Worcester Senior Center on June 26, 2018, 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at 128 Providence Street, Worcester, MA to open an installation of photography by the No Evil Project that celebrates the ingenuity, wisdom, and value of local seniors—and challenges negative stereotypes people may have about elders.

The installation, which depicts 120 seniors who use senior center services posing in the Three Wise Monkey poses—See, Hear, and Speak No Evil—is funded, in part, by a Council on Aging grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs. Each person chose three labels that represent them and have written a good deed they've done to show they're “not evil”. The goal of the installation is to challenge ageism by showing the wealth of ways that seniors contribute to the community. In a project first, each person’s labels will be printed in their native language including Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Albanian, and French, as well as English.

Worcester City Manager Edward M. Augustus, Jr.; Chief of Staff & Chief Strategy Officer of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs Robin Lipson; Worcester’s Director of Human Rights & Disabilities, ADA Coordinator Jayna L. Turchek, Esq.; and City Councilors Sarai Rivera and George Russell have said they will be on for the event.

“The Worcester Senior Center strives to provide a welcoming environment which promotes acceptance, appreciation, and inclusion of people reflecting the City’s diverse population,” says Amy Vogel Waters, director of Worcester Senior Center/Elder Affairs.  “The No Evil Project takes our efforts to another level, providing a visual display of our community to generate conversation and awareness of our differences in a positive way. This allows us to see that someone who might be stereotyped as ‘elderly’ or an ‘immigrant’ has many other personal qualities, and that everyone contributes goodness to the world.”

Since the founding of the No Evil Project in 2011, more than 7,000 people from around the world have been photographed to show they’re not defined by their labels.