Beautiful life for seniors
Initiative under NBOS aims to provide meaning for senior citizens
JUNE MOH
KUALA LUMPUR news@nst.com.my
BEAUTIFUL Life For Seniors, or #mySeniors, is an initiative under the National Blue Ocean Strategy (NBOS), which aims to help senior citizens aged 60 and above lead a productive and meaningful life.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi officiated the pre-launch of #mySeniors at the 1Malaysia Civil Service Retirement Support (1Pesara) Assembly at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang on Aug 15.
The programme will be extended across the country in a nationwide push to provide seniors with easy access to job opportunities and social activities to enable them to live a happy and meaningful life.
As a start, #mySeniors is divided into three segment: Senior-Friendly Jobs For Seniors, Lifelong Learning For Seniors, and Fun and Fitness For Seniors.
Jobs For Seniors provides seniorfriendly part-time and flexible jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for applicants through collaboration with the Human Resources Ministry, the private sector and non-governmental organisations
It will also provide a job guidebook for seniors and offer incentives to organisations that hire seniors.
Through collaboration with 1Malaysia EnTrepreneurs (1MET) and the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC), #mySeniors will offer senior-focused entrepreneurship training and boot camps, as well as coaching on senior-friendly business opportunities.
#mySeniors aims to consolidate the services offered to seniors by various ministries and organisations so they can have easy access to the information from a single channel.
Lifelong Learning For Seniors provides skills training that enable seniors to obtain senior-friendly jobs, if they need it, and to further enhance their lives, if it is of interest to the seniors.
The senior training will be incorporated into initiatives such as 1Malaysia Training & Skills Enhancement for the Rakyat (1Master) as it is available nationwide.
Among the courses which will be offered are computer and Internet courses to seniors, so that they can easily access online information and services.
The courses will be offered at centres with computers, such as 1Malaysia Training Centres (1MTC) and mini-Rural Transformation Centres (RTC).
Fun and Fitness For Seniors provides opportunities for seniors to participate actively in their communities for them to feel engaged and happy.
Under the spirit of NBOS, the volunteering, fun and fitness activities for seniors will be led by a collaborative effort from the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, 1Malaysia For Youth (iM4U), Youth and Sports Ministry and Health Ministry.
By leveraging on existing NBOS initiatives such as Perwani Community, Seniors Volunteering Programme and iM4U, social gatherings and volunteering activities targeting seniors can be done rapidly to boost seniors social interactions and make them feel engaged.
#mySeniors will leverage current NBOS community centres such as Urban Transformation Centres, RTC, University Community Transformation Centres, mini-RTCs and Military Community Transformation Centres as the location for #mySeniors fun and fitness activities.
In collaboration with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), a pilot project on eRezeki Global High Income, which started in August 2017, targeting three hundred government pensioners is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The eRezeki programme is based on the crowdsourcing concept, with specific focus on the bottom 40 per cent as the “crowd” providing services to earn additional or supplementary income.
In this pilot project, government pensioners Mohamad Hussin Pilus and Yusof Ahmad were the first two recipients of the eRezeki Certificate of Achievement awarded by Zahid after the pre-launching of #mySeniors during the 1Pesara Assembly Day.
LOGO
The #mySeniors logo unveiled at the pre-launch tells the story of the celebration of the circle of life and the adventures it brings.
The logo depicts an older and younger individual, which represent parents taking care of their children when they are young and the children in return taking care of their parents as they get older .
The interlinked colours of the logo represents everyone that is part of a community and the responsibility we have towards one another.
AGEING NATION
According to the Statistics Department, Malaysia will be an ageing nation by 2035, where 15 per cent of the population will be classified as senior citizens.
This means that Malaysia’s senior citizen population would number be around 5.6 million by 2035.
In 2015, there were 2.8 million senior citizens out of the overall population of 31 million people. The forecast senior population in 2025 will be 4.2 million, or 12 per cent, out of overall population.
The nation’s senior population is growing quickly, thus we need to ensure that seniors who have contributed to the country lead a happy and meaningful life.
The champion for #mySeniors is Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, while its implementation is headed by the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa.
Key strategic partners for #mySeniors are the Public Service Department, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, Health Ministry, Human Resources Ministry, Rural and Regional Development Ministry, Youth and Sports Ministry, the National Strategy Unit under the Finance Ministry, Malaysian Administrative Modernisation And Management Planning Unit, Communications and Multimedia Ministry and iM4U.
In addition, government-linked companies and private-sector companies led by Permodalan Nasional Bhd under the Blue Ocean Corporate Council platform will play a major role to ensure #mySeniors successful implementation.
The #mySeniors initiative was announced by Zahid on March 23 at the NBOS Summit Meeting and will be officially launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in October 2017.