International day for the elderly

International programme manager for Help the Aged – a UK based NGO that works to give voice to the issues faced by elderly people – David Clark, 27, highlights some of the challenges faced by people who are growing old in Europe today. And why October 1, which is the international day for elderly persons, is “possibly the most important day in the year”.

How will Help the Aged celebrate October 1 in Europe?

Help the Aged works with a network of older people’s organisations in Eastern, Central and Southern Europe (see list below) and each year the group organises national events on October 1 to highlight the main challenges that old people face today, namely: poverty, discrimination and neglect. But we also aim to highlight the contribution that older people have made and are continuing to make within civil society in the form of volunteering, working with children and caring.

What special events are in store this year?

National delegations of older people in 40 countries will meet with a high level minister (in 8 countries with their heads of state) as part of the Age demands action campaign. In Eastern Europe there are delegations in Bosnia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Latvia.

How do the challenges faced by elderly people in Eastern Europe compare to those faced in the UK?

The challenges tend to be the same – not having enough money to live on, being discriminated against in society, being at risk from exclusion – only that they happen to a much greater extent in Eastern Europe. We see older people who are trying to get support from a crumbling social pension system and trying to live out their lives with very little support. They have grown up with the expectation of being able to receive money from the state in their old age, but when it comes to it the state is either not able to provide for them or sets up so many barriers that they give up. Unofficial statistics from Serbia suggest that over 30% of over sixties receive no money from the government and have no regular income – a situation that is made worse by winter temperatures of as cold as -10 degrees Celsius. Help the Aged is just beginning to do some research work to find out what the profiles of these people who are not receiving any money are.

So poverty is one of the biggest drivers of your work?

Yes. People who simply don’t have the money to set aside for when they are older end up with nothing. Especially women and particularly those who have worked in the informal sector – in Romania and Bulgaria, people that have worked in agriculture now receive absolutely tiny pensions or widow’s pensions that are as low as 35 euros a month.

What solutions do you offer?

Looking to the long term we work with networks of old people’s associations in Eastern Europe in order to give them resources, training and access to research so that they can bring the situation of older people to the attention of those making the decisions. Only Serbia has identified the poverty of older people as a high risk issue, although we are still waiting for real measures to be put in place. Other countries recognise it but are slow to respond. Our work is to make older peoples’ voice a louder one, a better informed one, a more persistent one and one that will be here for many years to come. We want people who will be reaching old age in 20 years time to reach a different situation to the one there is today.

And what about the short term?

Our partners are setting up self help groups – groups of older people who have been trained to go out and help other groups of people in their community. A really exiting scheme from Slovenia, that is being replicated in Bosnia and Serbia, is being led by groups of “younger” older people (people in their 60s and 70s and those who are still very active). These groups, together with the social services, go out and visit every single person over the age of 75 and ask them what they need. Many may not need support but use the chance to become involved in the community. In other cases they do have needs and so the group can help them access the help they need – mentoring or working with the police to bring abuse claims into the open. What is really exiting about these cells that are popping up all over Slovenia, is that as people collect more and more information from the field, this is built up in to a pyramid – from the local to the regional and national levels.

Any examples of the impact of this work?

Last year Serbia passed a domestic violence law and for the first time it included older people as a risk group, which meant laying out measures to address the particular risks they face. This was largely due to the quantity of first hand information that these groups were able to collect – highlighting cases of neglect and abuse that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Are there any other indicators of success?

Our partner organisations working in Serbia and Bosnia have been driving forward the idea of social pensions – non contributory state pensions – as a safety net for three or four years now, educating the decision makers to the extent that in the last budget the Serbian government announced that it was going to set aside money for a social pension fund. We haven’t seen what that means yet, but it does mean that the research work we are doing now is really important.

How important is the day for elderly people?

Potentially it is one of the most important days of the year because it highlights that the world is getting older, and that this is not a catastrophe but a great triumph. Or rather, it will be if we respond in a way that captures the talents that people still have and doesn’t throw people away once they reach a certain age. The world seems very scared of an ageing population, but I would argue that there are opportunities in their that are being missed.

Is the idea of retirement still valid in a world where the number of elderly people is steadily growing?

I don’t think anyone would challenge the right to retire – what we are saying is that when people do want to work and ask to work they shouldn’t be refused the opportunity to do so. But I think there needs to be more of a debate around what old age really means, and of course the International Day for Older People is the perfect platform. It could be that third age begin to be considered as an opportunity age rather than an age in which to retire from society.

You are only 27. How did you end up working for this cause?

I came from studying social policy and during my studies began to see that there was a big chunk missing out of the discussion, and that was ageing. What began as purely academic interest developed into a career the more I got involved and met people who challenged my own views about later life. People forget that when we say in 2050 there will be X number of over 60s, we are not talking about a projection – those people are alive now, that’s you and me, your brother and sister. So I think that’s what motivates me.

What do you hope for your own old age?

A chance to be valued, involved, recognise that I may have health issues or mobility problems, but I wouldn’t want for that to stop me from being involved in society.

Are saving for your old age? Should we be?

Yes, of course!

 

Help the Aged’s partner organisations are:

Forum 50+, Poland

Budapest Pensioners Federation, Hungary

Forum Pre Pomoc Starsim, Slovakia

Lastavica, Serbia

Osmijeh, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Albanian Association Gerontology and Geriatrics, Albania