The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Helping people to grow old gracefully

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 18, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Helping people to grow old gracefully

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“We are constantly fighting poverty, isolation and neglect,” says Mathew Cherian, Chief Executive of HelpAge India. In Coimbatore recently to inaugurate a mobile medicare unit of HelpAge India, he spoke to Anasuya Menon.

An engineer by profession, Mr.Cherian gave up a highly remunerative job at an oil drill in Mumbai for social work. On the streets of Mumbai, Mr.Cherian was appalled to see street children clamouring for a morsel.

“I was not exposed to this kind of a sight then and that triggered a desire to get into social work,” he says. After several years in social service, he joined HelpAge India.

More than 50 per cent of the 81 million above the age of 60 in India have no access to food, medical care or clean clothes, he says.

HelpAge India is now focussing on the affairs of the elderly population in the Vidharbha region in Maharashtra where most families are reeling under an agrarian crisis.

The farmer sons commit suicide, often leaving the burden of the family upon the ageing grandparents.

It has also launched a project in palliative care in some parts of Kerala and Karnataka.

The ‘End of Life Pathway’ project is aimed at those in the 75 to 90 age group who have severe ailments and do not know what to do with their lives.

“Just medicines and food will not do.

“Isolation and neglect are damaging.

“Through the project, we aim to teach them how to live life in old age,” he says.

These two States were selected for the project as they had a higher proportion of elderly population owing to a very advanced health care delivery system.

Having entered into a tie-up up with the organisation ‘Help the Aged’ which is based in the United Kingdom, it is extending help to the elders who were affected by the disastrous tsunami in Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts and also in quake-affected in Kashmir.

For the elders who are living in old age homes, the organisation has floated a ‘sponsor a grandparent’ programme.

In this scheme, the sponsor makes available nearly Rs.6,000 for providing for the needs of one old person.

As many as 18,000 elders are sponsored through this programme, he says.

HelpAge India is also involved in negotiations with the Government in order to make available the old age pension to every old person, so that he or she can live in comfort as they age.

Though the Government gives Rs.400 under the National Old Age Pension Scheme, the process involves a lot of paper work and has to go through bureaucratic channels.

This process is something that many elders may not be able to go through, Mr.Cherian observes.

The organisation is also hoping that the Unorganised Social Security Bill, when issued will bring respite to the hundreds of older people who had been labourers, agriculturists or in such unorganised sectors in their prime years.

A majority of funds of the organisation are generated from the greeting cards, about four-and-a-half million, sold every year.

However, it has close to one lakh sponsors who donate from Rs.50 to 10,000 a month, Mr.Cherian says.

“The challenges faced by HelpAge India today are purely societal – making children take care of their parents and getting committed staff being two prominent ones,” he says.

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