THE Guyana Consumers Association has always had an abiding interest in two groups of consumers, who had often been marginalised and whose peculiar problems the rest of society seems to ignore. The first group includes women, whom our late President Emeritus Eileen Cox championed throughout her long life. The other group is the aged.

International Day of Elderly Persons was commemorated on October 1. The United Nations Secretary-General gave his traditional message, calling on all countries to take measures to ensure that elderly persons are able to fully participate in society, and have their voices heard.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) projects that, by 2050, 80% of the world’s older people would be living in the developing countries. In Guyana and in most other developing countries at the present time, populations tend to be about 60% under 15 years of age, and about 30% are 60 years and over. In the developed countries, the trend has been that their populations are becoming older, with those under 15 years of age becoming a reducing percentage of the population. It now appears that the population trends in developing countries are gradually beginning to resemble those of the developed countries, with increasing percentages of older persons.

Older people have been contributing their wisdom to society in all civilisations and in all eras, no matter what their station in life may be. For example, the story-tellers of Africa, or the shamans of Asia, and most of the philosophers and scientists and religious teachers who have made contributions to the betterment of humanity have been older persons. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, however, declared:” Older persons are calling for a world where all have food, shelter, clean water and sanitation, and access to health services and education.”

Ban Ki-moon is referring to the vast majority of older persons in the world, and indeed in our own Guyanese society. A person who may have reached middle-class levels of income by the time he retires or is unable to work, would find his economic condition fast beginning to deteriorate through the depletion of his resources by inflation, the payment of unexpected heavy medical bills, and so on. Very often, in Guyana, a person who may have once enjoyed a middle-class economic status would find that, in his old age, he has been reduced to much the same level as an ordinary labourer’s economic condition in that labourer’s old age.  Ban Ki-moon’s statement does have a greater universal applicability than would appear on the surface.

This implies that the state has to play a part in alleviating the hardships enveloping old people. Such state intervention is usually done by legislation, the tasking of social services bodies with specific activities relating to the alleviation of the conditions of old people, and by distribution of state resources to old people. Examples of such distribution would be the granting of universal and adequate old-age pensions and subventions to assist in payment for services such as electricity, water and telephone.

But old people must also do their part to help themselves, and they should be reminded, or taught, how to do so. The national newspapers often carry articles advising old people about healthy eating and about dealing with the diseases of old age, such as diabetes and heart ailments. Such advice is never seen by the poor and
semi-literate, and should be communicated verbally and visually by social workers to the lower social levels.

In this regard also, one could gain very useful guidance from the Vedic analysis of over 5,000 years ago. That analysis has stood the test of time, and is still relevant and useful today. In the Vedic analysis, an individual’s life is divided into four phases: the first phase encompasses the period of studentship and learning; the second phase is when the young person enters the householder’s life, is married, raises a family, earns his living, and creates material wealth; the third phase is when the householder begins to increase his knowledge of and commitment to God, and does public service; and the final stage is when one devotes one’s self wholly to God, and hopefully begins to enjoy some tranquility and peace; and when one also prepares for the coming of death.

These stages of life are of course not water-tight compartments, but dovetail into each other.  Most old people are in either the third or fourth stage, and if they can practise the guidance given, they would be able to live creative and positive lives in their old age, in dignity and with respect from all.

By Pat Dial