Aging comes with many challenges. The loss of independence is one potential part of the process, diminished physical ability and age discrimination.
The aging process comes with biological, emotional, social, intellectual, social and spiritual challenges. The biggest percentage of the elderly typically no longer hold jobs or do any business that can support them financially, this creating a trend of poverty among the elderly population.
Socially, elderly individuals’ risk being mistreated and abused- a target of ridicule and stereotypes – as the immediate family members and the community render them non beneficial to the society. Daily living and lifestyle, mobility and movements get out reality becoming an obstacle to socializing and even getting in reach to simple basics such as eating, dressing, bathing and related nature calls. Loneliness, inactivity and inability normally raise to high levels of depression, sinking them into cognitive and mental unhealthiest for example, dementia and brain disorders.
Three thirds of aged people in Uganda have at least two chronic conditions putting them at a risk of physical injury and sensory impairment. Good health services are a mystery to majority of them since they can’t afford.
Aged people fall into different categories. Some have a home and food to eat, but their care givers are always juggled into other family work and responsibilities hence denying the elderly some quality time of interaction.
Another category has shelter but getting what to eat, clothing, personal hygiene and medical treatment are a mystery to them, since nobody cares. These could even be having family members who consider attending aged adults as time wastage, and not relevant to them.
The last category are the desolate aged adults. They have no proper shelter or even no shelter, no clothing, very poor hygiene and hardly gets what to eat. Some end up on streets as beggars in search for survival.
Being a care- giver for elderly people is a full-time job. It is tough though rewarding and life changing. Bringing a smile and hope into the life of elderly persons require patience, commitment and passion. It calls for love, empathy, an ear to listen and a mouth to speak back. To be sincere, a few families can afford this.
In my own experience, with my aged parents- my father being 102 years (the oldest policeman in the world https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ) and my mother 79 years- seeing them go through unhealthiness and inability to meet their own needs, I have been inspired to start up this voluntary organisation to reach out to the helpless aged adults and to bridge the gap between the care-givers and the aged.