Celebrate Ageing's Dr Catherine Barrett hosts event in Daylesford

"There's no motivation for people to be free of something they can't see," Celebrate Ageing founder Dr Catherine Barrett said.

"We've got to see it first, to want to change it."

In time for International Day of the Older Person, Celebrate Ageing is hosting its annual symposium.

The past couple of years the event has been held in Melbourne, but after feedback Dr Barrett said people wanted to come to the region.

The symposium will be held in the Daylesford Town Hall on October 3 and 4.

Small changes and practical strategies are among the event topics, particularly around how people tend to attach a negative connotation to the word old.

"We're inviting people to think about old as good and all the positive things about our ageing," Dr Barrett said.

"Most of us know someone who didn't make it this far and who would have loved to have been an older person, so we are trying to get people to think about ageing as a privilege."

Dr Barrett said older voices are often on the margins so event goers will be able to hear their stories from a number of different speakers.

"We've got a woman in her 90s who's living on a farm and the nearest town is 200k [kilometres] away," she said.

"When we think about ageing, we think about support services, but that's not an option for her."

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