Charity begins at home …
Charities merger …
Hearing that Help the Aged and Age Concern England plan to merge in Spring 2009 to serve the needs of older people brought music to my ears. The new charity has a huge role to play on influencing policy and practice campaigning for and with older people.
Sometimes however, charity begins at home and its the simple things we can do for our neighbours that make big differences. Our street houses a majority of senior citizens, many still very independent and taking great care of their properties. The outward signs do not always tell the stories of loneliness and dispair.
One of our elderly neighbours recently lost her husband after 60 years of marriage. It has been easy to offer to cut her grass, to invite her to our home for Sunday dinners - and in return she has regaled us with stories of her missionary life in Africa, her years spent in Switzerland and her travels around the world.
Charity begins at home …
So whilst I applaud the work of the large charities, we can all do a little something ourselves - none of us are getting any younger, and I’m sure we’ll appreciate others providing us with a little humanity in years to come.
Should communities and neighbourhoods look after their elderly residents better?
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 8:55 am and is filed under General Interest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Yes! I think as we should be taking more interest and care in our elderly neighbours.
We have recently moved house and are delighted with our new home and lifestyle, with only one regret. We have left our elderley neighbour!
Her husband died a few years ago, leaving her alone in a large 4 bed house, which she is relutcant to leave, with 2 huge, unruly golden retrievers, and the health problems old age often brings.
We felt it our place to be there for her whenever she needed us, which, as she was independent and strong willed wasnt as often as we would like.
But it gave us pleasure to take her too and from the hospital for appointments, walk the dogs for her when she wasnt up to it, help out in the garden, bake for her, invite her round for supper from time to time.
When we moved she said she would miss us terribly, truth is, we miss her too! It didn’t take alot of effort on our part to do a few bits for her, but it made a big difference to her quality of life.