The elderly: Social justice or exclusion?

The National Council for the Elderly successfully held a half-day national conference at the Catholic Institute Floriana on Saturday 29 September. The theme was “The Elderly: Social Justice or Exclusion?”

The President of the Council welcomed the numerous attendees and invited the Parliamentary Secretary for Persons with Disability and Active Ageing to deliver his opening speech. He described what the government was doing to promote social justice and was followed by the speaker from the Opposition for Social Accommodation, the Fight Against Poverty, Solitude and Social Exclusion, who spoke about his view of exclusion.

The other speakers were Prof. Marvin Formosa, Head of Gerontology at the University of Malta who delivered the keynote speech, Carmel Mallia, President of Alliance of Pensioners Organisations who spoke about the sustainability and adequacy of State pensions, Etienne Caruana, Director General NSO, who spoke about the elderly and statistics and Anthony Gatt, Director of Caritas Malta, who spoke about the risk of exclusion for the elderly. This was followed by an open floor discussion about the subject

The president of the council delivered the concluding speech in which he expressed his satisfaction for the huge success of the conference and thanked all those who had participated to make it so. He also invited the attendees to contact the council with any further comments and asked them to look out for the report about the conference on the council’s website at www.kna.org.mt.