projects
age friendly kerala
This has been a dream project of CGS. When it was presented to the Director of Social Justice , he appreciated it very much and asked us to move forward . We suggested that the work should start at the Grama Panchayat level and then go to the district and state level. Accordingly we prepared a small project to commence the programme from the Grama Panchayat level. In the light of the discussion with the Director of Social Justice, we submitted a project to the Government of Kerala for implementing the projects in the districts of Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad. Manickal, Vembayam and Poovachal Grama Panchayats in Thiruvananthapuram and Karimba, Peruvemba, Mundur and Pudussery Grama Panchayats in Palakkad Districts were selected for the implementation of this programme.
The strategy was to to use the Anganwadis in these Grama Panchayats to organize the older people into Vayojana Sabhas and hold their monthly meetings where they would present their views, needs and problems which will be forwarded to the Central Committee – the Vayojana Council – consisting of representatives form Vayojana Sabhas for processing and forwarding to the Grama Panchayat Committee for consideration and implementation. Focus of attention has been on making the Primary Health Centres . Police Stations and the PWD as age friendly centres. In fact, all institutions in these Grama Panchayats have been sensitized in age friendliness and our Field Workers are on the vigil to ensure that total age friendliness is being achieved in these Grama Panchayats.
The Project has been envisaged as a total programme for the entire State of Kerala and we hope to implement it in the state stage by stage.
The kerala state policy on older persons, 2006
It will not be an exaggeration. to say that the Kerala State Policy on Older Persons owes its biggest debt to CGS . After its initial failure to prevail upon the government with its “Suggested Policy”, the matter was taken up with the Government of Kerala again in 2003 and this time it was more vigourously pursued. Thanks to the excellent rapport between CGS and the Government Department of Social Welfare, the Policy Document was accepted by the government and announced by the Honourable Minister for Health and Social Welfare in December 2006. Dr PKB Nayar, Chairman of CGS was made a Member of the State Council on Older Persons. He continues in that membership.
Monographs on aging Policy
CGS’s activity in the formulation of aging plans started in 1997 when it called a consultative meeting of a small group of experts to provide inputs for a state policy on older persons in Kerala. CGS thought that since aging problem was faced by the State of Kerala more severely than other Indian States, it should begin the exercise by formulating a model aging policy for that state. The suggestions of the Consultative Group were coordinated and presented to the Government of Kerala in the form of a document entitled Meeting the Challenges of Aging Population in Kerala: A Suggested Policy and Plan of Action for the Elderly of Kerala (January 1997). Copies of this document were distributed among the State’s Ministers, Members of the State Legislature, Head of Kerala Government Department and State Planning Board, Members of the Indian Parliament, President and Prime Minister of India, GOI Minister of Planning, Welfare, Labour and Health, Members of the National Planning Commission and Ministers and Secretaries of Social Welfare of all Indian States.
The Governor of Kerala in his inaugural address to the State Legislature in the same year (March, 1997) declared that his government will soon bring out legislation for the welfare of the state’s elderly. However, nothing more than this announcement happened in Kerala in the next 6 years in spite of the relentless efforts of CGS. Meanwhile the Government of Goa adopted this plan for its State Policy and Plan of Action for the Elderly People in Goa State, 2001. Thanks to the Centre’s strong networking, UN- International on Aging (INIA) Malta took cognizance of the document and thought that it may serve as a model for aspiring countries across the world to formulate aging policies for their elderly and accordingly published it under the same title in their quarterly journal BOLD (Vol. VII, No.3, 1997).
Encouraged by the reception accorded in the professional world of aging to the Centre’s Kerala Aging Policy, CGS prepared another document with All India perspective and with similar title Meeting the Challenges of Aging Population in India – A Suggested Policy and Plan of Action for the Elderly of India (January 1998). Copies of this document were distributed to all the critical decision makers in New Delhi. The then President of India, Dr. K. R. Narayanan, wrote a personal letter of appreciation on this to Dr. P. K. B. Nayar, Chairman of CGS. This document was published in the Journal of Aging and Society (Vol. VII, 3 & 4, 1998).
One of the critical suggestions in the document was Dr. Nayar’s concept of a “Multi Service Community Age Care Centre” elaborated by him in an earlier article “A Plea for Age Care Centres” and published in BOLD, Journal of the United Nations’ International Institute on Aging (vol. 3, No.4, 1993). The multi service age-care centre concept was incorporated in the Indian National Policy on Older Persons (NPOP) 1999. Dr. Nayar had served as a member of the Steering Committee of the NPOP.
