Fact-Finding Report On Barpello Help-Age Project
Loading...
Date
2001-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tangaza University College
Abstract
The perception of old age is a period of decline in which human and social inadequacy is taken
for granted. Older people suffer not only by being deprived of human contact, but also from
abandonment, loneliness and isolation. As their interpersonal and social contracts are diminished, so
their lives are correspondingly impoverished; they are deprived of the intellectual, cultural stimulus
and enrichment they need. The question of who is old has different perceptive in Kenya. Indeed,
when we talk of an old person immediately we think of our grandparents or any old looking person.
For to many of us, an old person is anybody with grey hair, wrinkled face, difficulties in walking,
talking, eating and getting sick quite often. They tend to have eye problems and at times become blind
and have other old age complications.
In order to ensure the political, economic and cultural recognition of old people it has been
necessary to bring to the fore their issues and hence the present attempts to raise sensitivity. My
experience among the Pokot community gave me an opportunity to realise elderly people's situation.
My area of interest was to see and participate in the involvement and the transformation of the old
people's lives in the East Pokot. After interviewing several people in the area, they told me that. an
old person in Pokot is a person who has lived or existed for a relatively long time or advanced in
years. He or she has wisdom and knowledge about the society.
In African traditional setting, the elderly people had great respect, and care in their families
and in the society at large. They were important and respected because they were closer to the
ancestors. Everyone had the responsibility of caring for the old people. The extended families took
care of them. Girls would stay with their grandmothers and the boys with their grandfathers. The
whole community was very sensitive to the needs of the aged. It was considered as a serious offence,
to abandon parents and elders, especially when they were old.
People believed that the words of the old people were potent, they could bless or curse. For
that reason, the family continued to love and to nurture them until death. They did not regard being
with them as wastage of time, but they showed them love and compassion respectively. All the same, the older generation had some duties to perform in the society. They were considered to be
a source of wisdom and they passed it to the younger generation
Description
Keywords
Help-Age Project