PHOTO CREDIT: INFRARED REMOTE CONTROL UNIT IN HAND © Alexey Arkhipov | Dreamstime.com

A friend just passed me a wonderful You Tube video that you really need to watch. It is fantastic and speaks volumes! She had passed me another one several months back that was quite good too. Just click below and watch:
You Tube – What is that?
You Tube – Lost Generation

Minister of State for Community Development, Youth & Sports Yu-Foo Yee Shoon (above) shared during the Asian Gerontology Experience (AGE) symposium (organised by Institute of Policy Studies, Council for Third Age and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy) held early this month that ageing will become an important issue for Asia’s developing countries, including rising regional players like China and India. “The number of Chinese residents aged 65 and above will double to 230 million in 2030, making up one in six people in China. While India will have a more youthful demography because of its higher birth rate, the number of residents aged 65 and above will also double to a very sizeable 120 million in 2030. We also need to take into account Asia’s fast changing social environment. This includes smaller family sizes, the rise of nuclear families, the growing role of women in the workplace and better educated new-old.” The symposium had over 30 participants from various regions including Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Taipei, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia and China. Participants came from various sectors including academics as well as from Government departments and there were sessions on gerontological training and research in academia, in the social service sector, in the public sector and in the business sector. They shared their experiences and learned new things from each other in hopes they may be able to carry it back to their own countries. Since ageing affects every country, it is important that the various Governments lend the necessary support and provide resources to deal with this population change before it becomes to late. As Minister Lim Boon Heng from the Prime Minister’s Office said during the dialogue session at the end of the two-day symposium, “Ageing is going to have a lot of implications … and it is not good to not have answers. … Need to look at ageing even if you have a young population. By the time, you look at it, they would have already aged.”

Another of our Agelessonline advisers has won an award! Zaibun Siraj, 62, (above) who usually sports a purple patch in her hair and runs her own consultancy firm and teaches people the power of laughter, is one of six seniors who won the 2009 Active Agers Awards last night. The other winners include: Chhua Bak Siang, 61, a Mandarin-speaking guide at the National Museum of Singapore and a volunteer at Fei Yue Family Service; Rajam Sadanandan, 62, who is enrolled in UniSIM’s General Studies Programme and getting a degree; Ruby R Ng-Ong, 72, who initiated a choral group called The Peranakan Voices and is learning to play the ukulele; and Sabapathy Gopalakrishnan, 74, who started exercise classes in his neighbourhood as well as the Brisk Walk Club there. Lastly, there is Sam Liu, 73, who won the Active Agers’ Infocomm Champion Award 2009. He helped start the Cyberguide programme at RSVP and is a volunteer IT trainer for the organisation. Congratulations and kudos to all six! You show Singapore and the world that seniors should be respected and that “old is not ‘over the hill’” as Gerard Ee said in his speech last night! I do hope other seniors will follow your zest and passion in life.

Our own Agelessonline adviser/ambassador, 66-year-old Lionel De Souza, was given the “Most Outstanding Crime Prevention Ambassador” Award for 2008 – 2009 by Eric Low Siak Meng, vice-chairman, National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), on October 3, 2009 at the Immigration Checkpoints Authority (ICA) auditorium. This is the second successive time that De Souza havs received this award; the first time was for the years 2005 – 2007. De Souza, a retired police officer, runs his own private investigation agency, and he is active in the community as a grassroots leader and the assistant honorary secretary of the Singapore Police Retirees’ Association. Kudos Lionel.

GRANDDAUGHTER LISTENING TO GRANDMOTHER © Avava | Dreamstime.com

This week for me has been really reflective. My older sister after many, many years living in Hong Kong has moved to Singapore. My first thought was: “Good God, now I am surrounded by family members!” My mom is living on and off here. However, I have settled into the idea and really am very glad to have her around. Though being so far apart for all these years but still a phone call away, it is vastly different to having someone in the same area and a car/MRT ride away. Yes, you save on phone calls but it is a good feeling to know that family is around. I think when one ages, we tend to not only slow down (maybe some of us don’t do that) but we also tend to come back to where our heart is and where our family is. I never thought when I was younger that would happen. I thought it would always just be a plane ride away and I am glad things have changed. I am thankful for the simple things in life. I hope my sister and I could now make up for the time we have been apart and I am sure we will. I am sure we will get on each others’ nerves, but isn’t that what family is all about! We can’t trade our family, even if we wish! Family is very important and it is time to go back to basics. Make amends to make it happen as once they are gone, you just can’t bring them back.

(Picture courtesy of LTA)

From October 1, seniors will have five more seconds to cross the road when the green man flashes at five locations near health facilities and transport nodes. This initiative launched by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) addresses the needs of elderly pedestrians who may require more time to cross the road. To initiate the extra time, seniors need to tap on the reader above the standard traffic light push-button with their new Cepas-compliant senior citizen concession card and the green man will appear with an extended timer. LTA will identify other suitable pedestrian crossings, and explore the feasibility of extending this scheme to the physically disabled. A very good move and long overdue! To read a more detailed story on the locations, go to www.agelessonline.net and click on Roving Reporter.

SENIOR ASIAN COUPLE © Arekmalang | Dreamstime.com

I read an interesting article this morning in “Today” newspaper from news agency Agence France-Presse about a 107-year-old Malaysian woman who is ready to remarry for the 23rd time as she fears her current drug addict husband might leave her for a younger woman. Her husband who is 70 years her junior is undergoing voluntary drug rehabilitation treatment in Kuala Lumpur. The woman, Wook Kundor explained that her intention to remarry “is to fill my forlornness and nothing more than that”. She added that she felt lonely without her husband during the fasting month and said she is searching for someone “to accompany me in my twilight years”. This further reiterates the need for companionships as we grow older. We need to keep busy with activities and have a strong support system that consists of family and friends, a point Minister Lim Boon Heng from the Prime Minister’s office raised in a speech at the IMAGINE Singapore summit. He said: “As we get older, companionship becomes even more important as we become less busy with building a career and raising a family.” Companionship helps against loneliness. Food for thought especially for those who are single or whose spouses have passed on.

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I got a call yesterday from a dear friend Henry Lim (above), 85, past president of the Gerontological Society of Singapore (GSS), who told me that GSS was started over 23 years ago and at the time, the word “gerontology” (the study of the ageing process) was unheard of. He added that GSS was really ahead of its time. (The Singapore Action Group of Elders started even earlier in 1977!) However, Lim said today it is a very different landscape – the issues on ageing have been highlighted often in the newspapers and we now have events on ageing. His call brought fond memories of when I first got on the senior scene some nine years ago when I was the editor at the time of a seniors’ magazine called “Senior Life”. The magazine too was way ahead of its time.

How times have indeed changed … certainly for the better as we need to collectively address the issues of ageing and the challenges that come with it. Lim added in our conversation that we must continue to persevere and I couldn’t agree more. GSS isn’t going anywhere and certainly I am not either. More heads really are better than one! Together we can make strides and bring the relevant issues to the forefront.

Pictured here: Minister for Manpower Gan Kim Yong, Minister Lim Boon Heng from the Prime Minister’s Office and Gerard Ee, chairman for the Council For Third Age, with representatives from the National Healthcare Group, Housing & Development Board and Royal Plaza on Scotts.

With the 2012 re-employment legislation coming soon, it is really a wake-up call that employers need to settle their employment practices and make them age-friendly. Employers need to look at their practices ASAP and not leave it to the last-minute. Yesterday, three Singapore companies were given kudos for their age-friendly employment practices and they should be looked at as forward-thinkers. Other companies who have yet settled their “houses” should look at these companies as shining examples of what works. The three include Singapore’ Housing & Development Board, National Healthcare Group (NHG) (that includes IMH and Tan Tock Seng Hospital) and Royal Plaza on Scotts. They were among 10 international winners who won the 2009 AARP International Innovative Employer Awards (the other non-Singapore winners will only be announced later this month) (an initiative that the Council For Third Age is involved in). For instance, NHG noted they have 17% of NHG staff who are 50 years and above. They have re-employment practices for their retirees and pre-retirement counseling at least three years before the statutory retirement age of 62 where they will send their employees for programmes on health management and financial planning. Though these companies are still learning, they are however in the first step of doing things right, so when will other companies follow suit?!

Over the weekend, I attended a Programme for YO! (Young and Old) Forum jointly organised by the Council For Third Age and the National Youth Achievement Award Council Gold Award Holders’ Alumni (NYAA GAYA). There were site visits at places like the Silver Circle Wellness @ Punggol South, Presbyterian Community Services Evergreen Circle (above) and YAH! Community College, and later in the afternoon, a forum. During the site visits, some of the youth taught English to the seniors, while the seniors taught them dialects, and some seniors got visited at their studio apartments.

Yesterday, I was at yet another intergenerational bonding activity – the IMAGINE Singapore summit where students from Anderson JC, Bendemeer Secondary, Marsiling Secondary, SMU, NTU, ITE Tampines, Temasek Junior College, Temasek Polytechnic, etc, got together with two other generations, including the baby boomers. In one of the activities, I connected with a student from NTU and it was a fruitful discussion. It was wonderful sharing our different experiences and concerns. We often complain about the young as there is a generation gap between us and them. However, seeing both work together, we really can achieve whatever we set our minds to, despite whatever age gap. I saw wonderful things come out of my bigger group when we did a three-minute skit and drawings of our vision of the future Singapore. In the skit, the whole team contributed ideas and good ones too! Even our two seniors who were at first reluctant to go up on stage for the skit finally did so and did it well!

(PHOTO CREDIT: Raymond Wee)
Kudos Raymond and Denis. We should stop looking at our differences but instead come to a platform of listening and understanding. We have problems with the younger generation and they have problems with us too! Instead of focusing so heavily on that we are better due to our long experiences and they are not doing certain things right (because it is not the way we do it), let’s just put aside what is different and agree to just disagree. We can find commonality and that is where we should be start from!