Honoring Wisdom and Experience: Celebrating Older Persons Week

This week was dedicated to honoring the pillars of wisdom and resilience of our older generations. Throughout this week-long celebration, we’ve heard a number of stories that highlight the wisdom, resilience, as well as the unwavering dedication of our senior citizens. From the heartwarming tales of their past, to the enduring values that have shaped our society, this week’s Look on the Bright Side shines a light on the indomitable spirit of our older population.

Sabreena Daly, Reporting

In a heartwarming tribute to the senior citizens who have enriched our lives with wisdom and experience, Older Persons Week was in full swing across the country. This annual celebration that began on October first, is testament to the importance of our older generation. Leading the activities is HelpAge Belize, a non-governmental organization that has been serving the elderly since 1984.

Ivorine Bulwer

Ivorine Bulwer, Executive Director, HelpAge Belize 

“We are committed to the well being of older persons, working with and for older persons to ensure they have a dignified life.”

HelpAge Belize serves the country, covering eleven locations and two residential facilities, reaching approximately twelve hundred elders nationwide.  Additionally, it operates nine day centers, offering a wide range of services and activities designed to foster social interaction and provide essential mental support for the elderly. Executive Director, Ivorine Bulwer told us more.

Ivorine Bulwer

“We facilitate the Sister Cecilia Home, Octavia Waight Center, by offering physiotherapy services and geriatric services. With the support from the government, we are able to provide those services. And, at the same time in all our sites, that aspect of ensuring socialization for all our older persons, that interactive aspect. And we’re looking at that mental well-being where they’re able to communicate and socialize with each other.”

As the festivities commenced, we visited the Belize City Center where spirited senior citizens were relishing a day of pampering. Among them is Ada Gallego, a widower who has been involved in HelpAge activities for over seventeen years. She candidly shares insights on leading a rewarding life.

Sabreena Daly

“What is the secret to staying happy and still feeling fulfilled while you’re aging?”

Ada Gallego

Ada Gallego, Elder

“Let me tell you something. I never worked in my life when I married my husband. He wanted me to be a housewife at home and I did that. Because he said, you know, I don’t want to have to run behind and say the children are here or I can’t go here. So, I stayed at home and took care of my kids. And from then on I do a lot of exercise; walk five miles a day and drink a lot of water and I’m not tired. I’m not tired. I walk from here to the electricity board up the road and walk back.”

Berta Husner has been part of this community for seven years. She says that the key to a joyful life is the initial choice to embrace happiness.

Berta Husner

Berta Husner, Elder
“If you want to be happy, then you have to make it happy. You have to make yourself happy. Don’t make anybody unhappy. Don’t do that. That means doing the correct thing in life.”

Ivorine Bulwer
“We try to celebrate older persons on a daily basis. Um, but the week of celebration, we’re celebrating older persons under the team resilience of older persons in a changing, in a changing world and across the country, we have various activities going on. In the Belize City branch, there’s a, um, pampering session where an older person is able to get their manicure, pedicure, and, um, massages, you know, um, some sites are having dinner, um, they’re having church services, interaction with the, with the schools, that intergenerational experiences, um, and they are, they are on the radio, But they are doing quite a number of socializing activities with, um, the older persons across the country.”

Accompanying these seenagers is a group of young volunteers. They are actively engaged in community service and eagerly absorb the wisdom being imparted. As expected, there is a wealth of useful knowledge to offer and the volunteers seek their guidance without a second thought.

Kallissa Casimiro

Kallissa Casimiro, Volunteer
“What advice would you give me as I move forward and go to St. John’s College?”

Josephine Allen

Josephine Allen, Elder
“I went to Pallotti High School. I went up to a sixth form level. I taught at Belize Technical Co not taught, but I was a secretary at Belize Technical College. And then I moved on to University of Belize, where I dealt with from my department, like 400 and odd students. So my thing to them was some of them, you know, sometimes would want to drop out of school. I advise them, don’t listen to friends. Think for yourself. And advise them, and at the end of the day, they graduated.”

Berta Husner
“When I was forty-one years old, I went back to school. I went back to school at St. John’s Extension. I did four years, I have one CXC in English and I graduated. I always wanted to go to school. When I finished standard six, they couldn’t send me because my sister was going, we were financially poor. I mean, I always had it in my mind to do it. So i was forty-one in a class with boys and girls because they used to cater for girls and boys that couldn’t go and came back and then they came back at thirteen or fourteen years. I was, “miss lend me a pencil”.

Joseph McLaren is also enjoying this week’s festivities. He shows me a tidy catalog of accomplishments as a bodybuilder in his former glory. At seventy-four, Mclaren still prioritizes his health.

Joseph McLaren

Joseph McLaren, Elder

“As we celebrate this moment of the week of the elderly, I believe that we need to pay attention to the elderly because we were in their place when we were young. We have to take that responsibility because when we were babies, we might do the same thing, take away, carry a doctor, make sure not, you know, wet up and all these things. The future is us and the future is them. Because if we take care of them, we will pass what we learned from them onto our younger generation.”

For Mclaren, the ultimate self-love is to make one’s health a top priority.

Sabreena Daly

“We are here celebrating older persons week with you guys, Mr. Mac, how do you prefer to be celebrated?”
Joseph McLaren

“The way I want to celebrate this week or down the road is to treat your body with love and respect. If you could do that honor to yourself then you could go down the road, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety until the big man says bye, the time is up. But a lot of us are carrying a dirty lifestyle, taking drugs and miss eating. The real habit of life is nature.”

Executive Director Bulwer emphasizes that mutual learning and guidance can occur between younger individuals and older persons.

Ivorine Bulwer
“They can, they can learn from the older persons, and the older person can provide some guidance. Especially those who are retired, can offer education sessions to all youths in the community, to provide that level of guidance, and to help them along the right path.”

From profound life lessons to enjoyable, lighthearted activities, the central message remains clear: our elders have a wealth of experience and wisdom. As I conclude my interactions, I’ve had the privilege of learning dance moves from an elder who seems to have been the life of the party in her younger days. Even now, she proudly declares that no matter her age or gray hair, she’ll continue to grace the dance floor.

Looking on the Bright Side, I’m Sabreena Daly.