The Welfare of the Elderly in Contemporary Kenya
Date
2000-03-31
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tangaza University College
Abstract
The Bukusu tribe of western part of Kenya has a proverb, which says; The older
person has the eyes of a hawk. This proverb implies that an old person is valuable thanks to
having a lot of experience in life and a wide spectrum of knowledge that can benefit the
society a great deal. It reminds me of my grandmother who died at the age of eighty-four. She
was not getting tired of advising me on how to go about with life. She was fond of instructing
me to be charitable and to respect the people whom I interact with. It was her pleasure even to
tell me whom to marry and the qualities I should look for. This was a routine whenever I paid
her a visit in her hut. In fact I presumed that it was a nuisance. Now she has joined the
invisible world and there is no one intimate to impart the wisdom of the sages. I feel ashamed
and hollow in that I did not ask many things about our family genealogy. It seems that I was
being affected by modem civilisation, which has 'wrong' impression of old age. This is
because I did not think that at her advanced age, she was capable of telling me anything in
line with our modern life.
Elderly people are archives of wisdom that the society may borrow from to advance in
social justice. Therefore, their welfare should be taken into account. In African society, the
aged had social responsibilities in the extended family and in the community or nation as a
whole depending on who they were. Their needs were catered for in all ways. These days,
they are being forgotten in social life as well as in economic life. We have to admit that we
are doing a disservice to this vulnerable group which can give us incredible insights about
life. I can not generalise that all is unwell in all families. But in one way or another, the aged
are being excluded from contributing whatever they may wish to give to the community due
the mobility of people's to different places. Therefore, in order to restore the glory of our elderly relatives, we have to put their needs on our agenda. In this paper we are going to see
what the problem is, how it is a problem and how we can address this problem to make the
lives of the elderly decent, beneficial and useful.
Description
Keywords
Welfare, Elderly in Contemporary Kenya, Old in Traditional African Society, Roles of the Elderly, Impact of Modernisation, Homes for the Aged, Church and the Elderly