Work

Last Friday I had my debut in the Indonesian media, and found myself quoted on improving health care for older people. I had prepared an article on primary health care for older people in Aceh, and sent this to a few web-based discussion groups widely read amongst the NGO community here. This story was picked up and published by a local newspaper.

This unplanned media attention was a nice boost for the morale at our small office on this late Friday afternoon. An advocacy project aiming to encourage other institutions to take better care of older people in their programmes is largely dependent upon the actions of those other organisations for its success. Although the environment we are working in is getting more and more receptive to our message, at times it still requires a lot of patience and diplomacy to get seemingly simple things done.

Sometimes I find it difficult to explain HelpAge International’s programme, and my role in it, to people who ask me how I fill my days at work. Our achievements aren’t as tangible as those of most other organisations working here. We don’t have numbers of houses, schools or roads built to boost with. But I will try to give it a shot.

HelpAge International is the largest worldwide network organisation working for the rights of disadvantaged older people. During and after emergencies, the needs of older people are often not taken into account by humanitarian agencies. Women and children are recognised by most agencies as vulnerable groups that need specific attention. But older people, often one of the hardest-hit groups during emergencies, are habitually neglected in the relief effort.

The aftermath of the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was no different in this respect. Literally hundreds of aid agencies rushed to Aceh, where more than 160 000 people had been killed by the giant waves of the tsunami and over a thousand kilometres of coast line had been destroyed. Despite the this huge influx of aid, surveys by HAI found that this aid did not sufficiently reach older people, or that the aid wasn’t suitable for them. For instance, older people were unable to reach aid distribution sites, or the food packages did not contain food that was easy to cook and to digest.

After the immediate emergency phase was over, NGOs started to focus on recovery of houses, infrastructure and livelihoods. Here too, older people were often forgotten. An important reason for this neglect is that most organisations do not disaggregate the data of the population in the area where they are working by age-group. Older people and their problems thus remain invisible.

Considering the large numbers of organisations that were working in the relief and rehabilitation effort in Aceh, HelpAge International thought that rather than to implement a programme by itself, it would be more effective to support those organisations in focussing their programmes more on older people.

“Supporting INGOs and the government in addressing the needs of older people”… what does that mean? It means, first and foremost, trying to convince others that there is a need to pay more attention to older people. Perhaps surprisingly, we have come across many instances where people didn’t see the need to consider older people as a separate vulnerable group. Others presumed that almost all older people had perished in the devastating waves of the tsunami, clearly a result of the above mentioned lack of segregating population data by age. In fact there are many older people living in the areas where the tsunami has hit. As the recovery effort progressed, many of those older people were left behind because of the lack of attention of NGOs towards their needs.

For instance, many organisations organised cash-for-work projects in house and road construction in order to provide tsunami-victims with a direct source of income. These activities are generally too heavy for older people, leaving their livelihoods shattered and keeping them dependent on their family or community for their survival. In order to convince organisations of the current gap in the rehabilitation effort, HelpAge went out and conducted research on the status of older people after the tsunami, organised workshops and media-events and undertook countless meetings with organisations working in Aceh.

Next, supporting INGOs and the government in addressing the needs of older people means providing those institutions that are willing to make their programme ‘age-friendly’ with the training and tools to do so. This has been another major component of the programme. In a few cases, this has resulted into elaborate partnerships, such as with the British Red Cross and with the Provincial Health Department.

So where do I fit in all of this? Already more than one year I have been working here as a Programme Assistant. My focus is on the livelihood activities of the programme and on documentation and reporting, although in such a small office as ours (since January just 6 staff!) everybody is doing a little bit of everything.

Last year, one of my major activities was working on the partnership with the British Red Cross (BRCS), which just got off ground when I arrived. We were supporting the BRCS in ensuring that their programme targeted older people as a vulnerable group by providing orientations to staff, having our Field Officers working with BRCS in the field, and regular meetings between management to advise on strategies. I was involved in coordination between the two organisations and documentation of the whole process, which was largely a new experience for both organisations. This documentation effort ultimately resulted in the publication Mainstreaming Age-Friendliness.

I have also been working intensively on a project we have implemented together with a local organisation. In 14 tsunami-hit villages we have assisted the community in setting up Older People Associations. These are community-based organisations aimed at improving the living conditions of older people. In the same 14 villages we also implemented a livelihood cash grant programme. This means that older people received a sum of money which they could use to start or strengthen an income-generating activity, such as opening a shop or buying livestock. This project was intended as a pilot, to demonstrate to NGOs and the government the need for livelihood support to older people and the benefits of organising older people in groups.

Last year, I’ve worked on designing and implementing the cash grant programme and monitoring its progress. This year, I have been doing a detailed impact monitoring of the cash grant programme and in designing strategies to strengthen the programme. For two months, I have been interviewing beneficiaries about their thoughts of the programme and to find out if the cash grant has been useful to them. In the picture you can see me conducting a group discussion with older women who have received the grant. One of the things that came out is that awareness is very low amongst older people about different government services that are available. Now, I am in contact with several government departments to find out ways for older people to access these services.

Congrats, you have made it to the end of this story on oldies :-) Next time more about my life in the Archipelago outside of HelpAge.