Making a special effort to honour them
AS WE observe the National Council for Senior Citizens’ annual Senior Citizens’ Week, we are encouraged by indications that Jamaicans are becoming more aware of the value of our senior citizens and our responsibility to these builders of our nation.
The theme of the Week is ‘Forging Our Future: Embracing the Participation, Contribution and Talents of Older Persons’. We at CCRP, with a membership of more than 2,000, are blessed to see up close the energy and dynamism of our Jamaican stalwarts.
We are encouraged by the interest being shown in offering employment, full or part time, to retired persons. Finally, businesses are discovering that the experience and ethics that seniors bring to the table are invaluable.
We applaud Shahine Robinson, minister of labour and social security, for tabling a Green Paper earlier this year, which carries revisions of Jamaica’s earlier national policy for senior citizens. In the preamble for this paper, we note that the 2018 policy will focus efforts on creating a responsive programme framework that acknowledges and facilitates the enjoyment of citizen rights by older persons while empowering their continued active and productive ageing.
We congratulate the management and staff of the National Council for Senior Citizens, led by Cassandra Morrison, for their islandwide reach and compassionate work for Jamaica’s senior citizens. These include computer classes, spelling and Bible quiz competitions, sports days, and their ever-popular ‘recycled teenagers’ dance group.
We call on all Jamaicans to make a special effort during Senior Citizens’ Week, beginning on September 23, to reach out to the senior citizens in their communities, making a special effort to honour them.
I would like to thank the CCRP board for their continued dedication to the cause of our seniors: Honorary chair, Professor Denise Eldemire-Shearer; honorary director, Kenneth Hall; Ambassador Aloun Assamba; Vilma McDonald; Karen Gauntlett; Avrill Crawford; Dr Owen James; Peter Mais; Michael Fraser; Dennis Jones, and Sethuraman Kumaraswamy.
Earlier this year, we launched our Central Jamaica chapter and thank Dr
James, Jean Seaga-Anderson, Patricia Blackwood, Sonja Allen, Sadie Johnson, and Leighton Ritch for their leadership of the chapter.
We are gearing up for the launch of our Western Jamaica chapter.
Our current focus is on the issue of elder abuse, and we are grateful to Public Defender Arlene HarrisonHenry and attorney-at-law Gloria Langrin for joining with Ambassador Assamba on our CCRP Legal Committee, which will be making a submission to Parliament to legislate against elder abuse in all its forms.
We wish Jamaica’s senior citizens an enjoyable Senior Citizens’ Week and commend all the Jamaicans, particularly those in our churches and elder-care institutions, who provide excellent assistance and care to our precious seniors.
JEAN LOWRIE-CHIN CD, JP Founder & Executive Chairman CCRP