One day I was waiting for my train at CST Railway Station, Mumbai which is one of the busiest railway stations in India. My train was little late so being a writer I decided to observe the place for a while. And guess what?
I was surprised as I couldn’t spot a handful number of senior citizens among thousands of younger ones. What a young country India is! After I got on my train I couldn’t help thinking about the senior citizens and their present status in our society.
Then I asked some questions to my writer self.
Does not our so-called longing for an independent life make us irresponsible towards our parents and grandparents?
How do old people manage everything when their children leave them home alone to settle down their lives?
When nobody is there to care, to help them with their illness and helplessness and above all to share the loneliness they have at the time of this age.
We all are running our respective races without caring about the ones who got tired doing it for their entire lives only for us.
Do they even matter to us now? What do you prefer for your weekend watching a movie with your friends or taking your old guys for an evening walk?
These are big questions we have been neglecting for a long time but not anymore. It’s time to find solutions to the problems our senior people face every day as we are also living the same life cycle and one day we will get old too. Keep reading this article further if you care for the old man at your home or that old pretty woman in your neighbor.
How to help seniors to relieve the stress of this old age
When you get old, you get retired and illness becomes your best friend to never leave you in comfort and easiness in your life. Our seniors miss their work, their friends and also their responsibilities. Because they have been taking care of their home, their children and their business for years.
But now they are not able to make any efforts for you or society anymore. It keeps bothering them and causes a great deal of stress. There are many ways you can help them get out of this unhealthy stressful life.
- Take them for a walk and discuss the various aspects of life. They will educate you on the most practical learnings they gathered during their lifetime.
- Yoga can help seniors to be physically active and have a healthy mind in this tricky age.
- Read their favorite book for them and also play the music which delights them most. It will keep their emotions stable and connect them with their inner selves.
- Above all gather their friends and family, spend time with them and listen to the stories they tell you about how to avoid mistakes and make the right decision in your life. It will make them feel valuable and happy.
May you ask?
What about the families where all children have settled down in different cities and some even in abroad? This is a real problem as it happens with most of the cases we see around us. The next section of this article has a suitable answer for you.
Volunteers from senior care centers can give you a big relief
Not long before from today, we used to live in joint families. There was always someone to take care of our elders. But time has changed now as people started founding more and more nuclear families in order to secure their children’s future and that led to this disturbing situation for our seniors.
To solve this problem a new concept has been emerged recently and is becoming quite popular with time.
Seniors care centers are training their volunteers to spend time with elders who join their program. These volunteers spend a certain time with seniors every week depends on what program you prefer for your elders. These trained young volunteers take them to walk, go to bank or doctor and even play puzzles with them. They talk to them, read them a book and help seniors with all kind of activities they want to do in their day.
Results are very impressive because one side elders have someone who accompanies them to give the comfort they need and the other side these young volunteers learn from their experiences and understand the challenges of the old age.
In India, all major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Ahmedabad have such senior care centers and we hope they will be able to help every needy person soon in the future. So this seems to be a fine solution for the people who don’t have any time for their seniors.
These volunteer get certificate clearance from the police so you don’t have to worry about leaving your old man home alone with them.
We all must support these types of initiatives as much as possible.
As they treat our elders just like their family members which also gives them a great opportunity to become emphatic, generous and a good human being in their lives.
The best thing about this program is volunteers get paid to take care the senior citizens as well which makes this relationship between volunteer and elders more stable and fruitful for both the parties involved.
If you want to join this program and become a volunteer you can Google such senior care center in your city and provide your service anytime you want.
Why should we make the care of our seniors a national issue. In the conclusion, I would like to get your attention on this fact we proud a lot these days.
It is true that India is one of the youngest countries in the world. That is why we must make efforts to face more serious problems related to senior citizens in near future. Because after 30 or 40 years from today we will have millions of elders facing the same problems with not many young ones around.
Think about it and please spread the word among your friends and families as well.
