How to show care for older persons this festive season

The festive season is upon us, and it is that time of the year to feel merry; but for many aged people, it is a moment of sad reflection of the good times they had yet they no longer have the physical and mental control over.

It is this gap that FREDERICK NYANZI and his team of caregivers under NGO The Aged Family Uganda (TAFU) seek to fill and put a smile on the aged. As Moses Mugalu writes, more than 3,000 aged people have benefitted from their noble cause.

The festive season is upon us, and it is that time of the year for everybody to wind up with functions such as weddings, last funeral rites, end-of-year corporate parties, reunions and village get-togethers. Families are now moving to beaches and visiting friends. Completion of construction sites as well as home painting are being rushed at the eleventh hour.

Meanwhile, church leaders are preparing church premises and spirits of believers for the day of the saviour’s birth. Not lost in the frenzy, politicians are drawing plans of where to attend Christmas day services and festive season events in order to get space to convince voters on their expectancy that the community has requested them to stand for another term.

On the other hand, business owners readying for the festive peak season as Christmas lights and trees glow in several Kampala malls.
Amidst all this excitement, the most endangered species are the animals and birds that are going to play a part of menu of this festive period.

THE AGED MISSING OUT!

The question is, what about the aged? Is there a plan for the older persons to enjoy the festive season as well?

I was a bit skeptical when Nyanzi invited me to join his team for an outreach programme for the elderly in Mubende but the three-day experience left me awestruck. On Friday December 8, 2023, The Aged Family Uganda (TAFU), an organization that advocates for older persons, answered the call through a series of activities for the elderly in Mubende district as part of advocacy and corporate social responsibility.

TAFU cares for the elderly and trains caregivers. Each year, they ensure that the trained young people spend the entire festival season in a community of the elderly. Led by Nyanzi, the project manager, the students, mainly training in gerontology and geriatric nursing, arrived at Mubende district headquarters at 11am to conduct a community outreach.

They started by befriending the aged persons hosting them at their homes to assess the real problems affecting them. A group of two gerontology students were allocated one older person to visit and befriend. On the village of Katabalanga, Mubende municipality south division, Mzee Alex Kiguli, one of the older persons, was stunned.

“Thank you very much for the surprise visit. I have taken four days without speaking to anybody since I cannot move out of the house. I last ate rice at the burial function seven months ago when I could still move,” he said.

The students donated to him sugar, rice, soap and household items and even invited him for a Jajja’s day-out party the next day, which party was organized only for the older persons. Maimuna Batenga, another older person at Namagogo village, said even her own grandchildren in Kampala cannot afford visiting her.

“To have you students from Kampala here to check on my wellbeing is a Godsent experience,” she said.

Many older persons visited said the biggest problems affecting the them is isolation and lack of care.

PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT

During the visit in various communities, it was evident that many older persons lack clean water and do not have proper latrine facilities.

The next day on December 9, The Aged Family Uganda organized a symposium of the leaders of the older persons in Mubende district to sensitize them on their roles of helping the older persons as a community. As the symposium was going on, older persons got free treatment of various ailments at a medical camp that was organized together with the medical officials from Mubende district and Mubende regional referral hospital.

Later, the older persons were hosted to the Jjajja’s day-out where they had entertainment of games of older person and stories from the past. It was a nostalgic moment for the Jjajjas, who were provided with a rare Christmas treat full of eats and drinks as well as donations from the gerontology students.

The next day, gerontology students visited Mubende regional referral hospital to provide bedside care services to the older persons in the hospital. It was discovered that many older persons do not report the sickness in time to get early treatment; so, Nyanzi advised community leaders to always advise the older persons to get early treatment.

“It is mainly our role and duty as the community to provide care to our older persons and leaders need to be at the forefront of this effort,” he said.

One student, Ruth Nabweteme, said it was an eye-opening experience to bond hands-on with older persons and coming to know the real problems affecting them and how the problems can be solved.

“I always thought it was about providing them with treatment but they also need someone just to be beside them and share life experiences,” she said.

“They have a lot of pain in their hearts and just talking to you helps them release all the negative energy.”

The students promised to keep in contact with the befriended older persons in Mubende and provide reasonable help to them, even after getting jobs in the diaspora, since most of the gerontology students are being trained to provide care services to the elderly in the diaspora.

At the end of the weekend, the one thing for sure that left many people awed was that the elderly need attention and Christmas couldn’t have come any earlier for them. The Mubende outreach was TAFU’s fourth in recent ones following Tororo, Luweero and Kayunga.

Evolution of the Aged Family Uganda

Fredrick Nyanzi and Richard Ssemanda founded TAFU in 1999 to advocate for the plight of older persons in Uganda. In 2001, TAFU was registered as an NGO to operate in Kampala and that year organised the first Older Persons International Day held in Uganda. In 2004, TAFU commenced its elderly and home care service and expanded in 2005 to include Wakiso, Luweero, Kumi, Masaka, Mityana and Mukono districts.

As of 2007, more than 3,000 older persons had been direct beneficiaries of TAFU. The organisation is managed by a volunteer board and the day-to-day activities are run by a team of voluntary staff members, all with gerontology experience. Trained nursing aides and volunteers provide home and hospital-based care.

TAFU currently operates in Kampala, Wakiso, and Luweero districts of Uganda. TAFU’s main income source is its hospital home care service. TAFU has also attracted small one-off grants locally and from European charities that have enabled it to successfully develop and implement a number of important projects to support older persons.

Who is Nyanzi?

Nyanzi is a former a primary school teacher at St Peter’s primary school, Nsambya. He was promoted to head the school but after the outbreak of the Covid-19, he resigned to concentrate on providing care services to the older persons in Uganda. He trains caregivers to work in Uganda and in the diaspora.

He is the champion of advocacy for the older persons in Uganda. He has organized seminars for the training of political leaders in empowering the older persons for independence and dignity to increase longevity.