The Price of Friendship Project
Frauds prevention project, initiated and implemented by the General Directorate of Bucharest Police.
The general objective of the project was to reduce the risk of senior victimization, by accomplishing the following specific objectives: to analyse the target group from attitudinal and behavioural perspective; to increase the level of preventive information targeting seniors; to increase seniors’ self-defence abilities.
The target group consisted of seniors over 60 years old who were members of the seniors’ clubs set up by the local public authorities in each district level.
In the time period January to October 2017, crime prevention officers developed 34 awareness raising activities, such as: the risks associated to seniority, prevention of victimization in case of frauds, by the following methods: “the accident”, ”supermarket promotion”, ”prize money from television or from telephone companies” where seniors were sweet-talked out of their savings by being deceived with “legends” such as their children being involved in traffic accidents in urgent need of money to make the punishment, be it a fine or imprisonment, go away.
Along with information, the personal development of the old people from the target group was aimed by training abilities to use a computer, objective accomplished with the help of IT specialists, during 6 training sessions, focusing on: using the internet, searching for useful information on the official websites and sending personal or other e-mails, and other such initiatives.
The above mentioned activities were accompanied by video clips with preventive content.
During the project implementation, they were periodically broadcasted on national TV and radio station, alongside with being disseminated on the TV screens from 4 hypermarkets.