Our own senior citizens who are making difference in society

New Delhi: Every year, August 21 is celebrated as World Senior Citizen's Day. US President, Ronald Reagan, demonstrated this day to raise awareness about problems faced by senior citizens and how it is affecting their quality of life. This day is also dedicated to highlighting the role and contribution of senior people in the world.

There are various themes that are dedicated every year on World Senior Citizen's Day to evaluate the troubles they are facing. The theme for this year's World Senior Citizen's Day is “Pandemics: Do they change how we address age and ageing?”

In the last two years, all of our perspectives have changed and the pandemic has affected all age groups. During this period where on one hand, the mental and physical health of senior people has been impacted and on the other hand, some of them still come forward and contribute to the betterment of society.

Ram Avtar Nayar, who is a 65-year-old resident of Rohini, is one out of those senior citizens who are contributing to making the place better and helping people around him. He is president of Northex Senior Citizens Forum. Their forum is connected to a total of 800 senior citizens who are 60 to 85 years old.

Talking to CitySpidey, he mentioned, “During the time of second wave of coronavirus, we identified a total of 320 people with the help of police who all are senior citizens and living alone. We provided them food and medicines when the situation was not good. Our team kept on checking on all those people during the testing time.”

Now they are planning to provide a special place to senior citizens for meditation at a regression centre in Sector 9, Rohini, where they have two rooms specially booked for calming activities. Nayar said, “We organised an event on August 15 for old people, where they hoisted the flag.”

For his excellent work, Nayar was also awarded many titles like Corona Yodha, Corona Warrior and Corona Mahaveer.

Our other hero is PK Dutta, a 66-year-old resident of Dwarka. He is contributing to making our surroundings green and lively. He has been a nature lover since childhood. He organised a nature walk to appreciate nature's beauty. He arranged a nature walk for the students of Cambridge School, Indirapuram in the District Biodiversity Park, Ghaziabad.

He is suffering from Parkinson and is a great inspiration to all the young people around. PK Dutta captures the beauty of mother nature and arranges photo exhibitions in parks for morning walkers to create awareness and authorise the power of nature.  He also participated in many environmental activities. Two schools in Dwarka received state and national level awards for participating in the Green Schools Programme of Centre for Science & Environment on his initiative.

There are also societies where a lot of emphases is given to the well-being of senior citizens. Prateek Laurel in Sector 120, Noida is one such society. Senior Citizen Welfare Group from Prateek Laurel has a total of 75 elderly people in their group.

VP Singh, President of the society said, “We arranged a total of 15 days of computer and smartphone learning sessions for 22 senior citizens who were between the age of 60-70 from March 1 to 19.”

He also talked about cyber fraud happening with two of their people from the senior club. Society helped them out. “We went to the cyber police and filed a complaint. We helped them to recover their money back.”