The National Senior Citizens Center (NSCC), says it plans to collaborate with NIMC to provide special ID cards to enable older person’s access special discounts when they use goods and services are underway .
The DG National Senior citizens center,Dr Emem Omokaro reiterated this during a media parley in Abuja to mark the 2022 united nations day for older persons with the theme, . “The Resilience and Contributions of Older Women”,
The DG said, the theme is a reminder of the significant role older women play in traversing global challenges and contributing to their solutions with resilience.Sje cited such roles to include political, economic, social and even cultural roles.
Dr Omokaro decried the fact that despite their contributions over the years, women remain largely invisible and disregarded, limited by gender disadvantages accumulated throughout their lives.
According to her, “On this International Day of Older Persons, we are celebrating the resilience of older women and men in a changing world, and moving from resilience to empowerment. When you talk about resilience, we are saying that they’ve passed through threats, distress and trauma. It has not really been well, however, they have developed coping mechanisms to survive.
“So, we will be celebrating them and looking at what has changed in the world, what has been their challenges and how they have been able to survive all these years without a policy or anything that concerns them. We will make a bold statement that, with what we have on ground, we should not be talking about resilience but about empowerment.
“We will also look at their coping mechanisms and how we can strengthen and empower them to live dignified, happy, secured and healthy lives.
Speaking on the health of older persons, , she said the NSCC is working on capacity building of caregivers and health workers who will reach out to remote villages where the aged who cannot access the primary healthcare facilities are located.
“we are now working to mainstream integrated care for older persons to primary healthcare. That means that before now—their resilience, what they were struggling with—there was no geriatric assessment in primary health care and there was nothing for the geriatric population
.
“That means that the older women in the community who cannot come out to the primary healthcare centre will be left to die wherever she is. But now, we are reviving all that”, she said.
She called on individuals and communities to pause and pay attention to older persons, who they are, their contributions to society, their challenges and also their demographics, noting however, that Africa has over time focused on the youth demographics, while neglecting the demographics of older persons which is steadily growing.
1st October is set aside by the United Nations General Assembly to mark the International Day of Older Persons.
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