Viola Myles celebrates 104th birthday

Miss Viola Myles, one hundred and four and still going strong. That’s right, this weekend one of our favourite centenarians will celebrate one more year of life on earth and this afternoon we joined in the birthday celebrations.

Viola Myles, Turning 104 Years Old
“I feel lovely.”

Kendra Griffith, Reporting
On Sunday, Viola Myles will be turning one hundred and four years old.

As has become the tradition, today a crowd gathered at the Sister Celia Home for a birthday celebration in her honour.

2006 was an eventful year for Miss Viola. In July, Myles and a friend were the victims of armed robbery at her home on Allenby Street; and not long after, she suffered an injury during a fall.

Sharon Pollack, Helpage Belize
“She fell and broke her collarbone-she tripped and fell down her stairs. So her daughter insisted—she couldn’t live alone anymore and so she here so that there is always someone here to be with her and now the collarbone is healed and now she’s fine and she’s walking and wonderful.”

Kendra Griffith
“And she’s happy to be at the home?”

Sharon Pollack
“Yes, yes very happy. A lot of friends are here and she also comes to activities and meets with some other friends and she gets a lot of visitors.”

Myles is only one of thousands of elderly persons living in Belize. Working to improve the quality of their lives is the National Council on Ageing and organisations such as Helpage.

Sharon Pollack
“There is no really homeless older persons right now. We have drug addicts and such on the streets, but really and truly there are no homeless older persons; they all have a home. The situation with abuse, there is not much. It is reported and we do look into it and Human Development looks into it if there are any problems there. The situation is not as bad. The problem is poverty in the sense that the non-contributory pension, a lot of women did not come in under the Social Security scheme because worked at home. That’s what we fight for to get them their seventy-five dollars a month and I’m hoping that will go up because that doesn’t go anywhere much, but it does give them a little bit of dignity.”

And while many of those older persons will not live to see a hundred like Myles, the centenarian maintains that there is no secret to her longevity … but she does have some advice Belize’s youth on living a full life.

Viola Myles
“I just live and thank the Lord.”

Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.