Anderson with Carole Baine General Manager, Country Services, Silver Chain at the ACSA IAHSA conference 2015
In part 1 of this this two-part series, CommonAge ambassador for Zambia Anderson Simfukwe, shares his thoughts on older people and some of the work his organisation, Aged Care and Service Centre, carries out. Through our scholarship to attend the 2015 ACSA/IAHSA conference in Perth, Anderson met Hilary Lee from Dementia Care Australia, and this year he and a colleague attended its innovative Spark for Life Master course.
“In Zambia, dementia has traditionally been considered part of normal ageing and has not been a public health priority, making it even easier to ignore, particularly in relation to resource allocation. When resources are tight, it is much easier to reduce services to people with dementia living at home, or not provide a service at all, than it is to cut back on hospital-based services that are much more visible and politically sensitive.
Dementia is still rooted in both medical and traditional superstition models and the current engagement by Aged Care and Service Centre in the dementia space is based on a desire to move the care system towards Spark of Life Approach that focuses on person-centred, autonomy, empowerment and social connectivity for people with dementia. Seeing people with dementia as assets to be cherished can be of enormous transformative value to the society within which they live.
People with dementia are citizens with inalienable human and civil rights that must be protected.
A few years ago, my niece moved down from Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia and put some of her luggage in my house pending time she would get a decent accommodation; these included a pot of flower that she put in my veranda. I overheard her say, “take good care of it” and I asked what she meant. She said the pot of that aloe vera plant should be well taken care of because the Horticulturist who sold it to her said the flower was three years old. I love flowers but I have never cared or grown one before. And since the flower was not lying on my head I let be. I later discovered that this single plant has many babies; we transplanted them into several pots. Now there is aloe vera all over my house each pot at every given time has so much babies ranging from 8-13. In fact, I give them out in pots to people who are interested.
There came this beautiful day of reflection when I stood outside the veranda and said to myself, ‘Look at the mother plant of these aloe vera plants’. With so many baby plants scattered all over, the mother plant struggles on its own with little assistance from the baby plants if not none. As it grows older, it goes through a lot of tribulations of isolation and loneliness despite being the mother to so many baby plants.
Aged Care and Service Centre helps people such as Daviness Namusukuma who lives with dementia
The picture of old age in this context looks gloomy and horrendous however old age is not a curse neither is it a disease rather it a blessing. No one ever prays or chooses to die young or at a tender age. Rather everyone desires to grow and be full of age before the inevitable departure. However, old age can be lonely, stressful and painful except certain contemplations are available and some definite steps taken earlier in life. The mother plant is left all alone as the baby plants are scattered around and transplanted into flower pots.
Such is the scenario of old age in Zambia. The anecdote depicts growing old in Nakonde, Zambia as most families adopt nuclear type of arrangement of father, mother and children with no particular care and responsibility to the extended families that include their old fathers and mothers and other relatives. This family arrangement has left many older people in Zambia to live in the countryside as the young ones trek to the cities for greener pastures.
All things in life obey the divine law of seed and harvest including old age. The seed that was sown earlier in life cannot be leaped in old age. This is where this account becomes inevitable for all and heterogeneous no matter the age, sex, religion, race and culture. Old age is a time for wisdom manifestation. It is also time to enjoy the profits of the much labour earlier done in life.
Having seen much of life, it is time to be more divinely minded and also be more engaged in meaningful projects rather than chasing mundane things of life. Old people should be legacy minded and oriented. All things being equal in life, ageing should be full of funny and retrospect of past life.
Such is not the case in the developing world where poverty and wretchedness are order of the day.
It is in this context that Aged Care and Service Centre has taken up the responsibility to care for the aged in the communities despite the many challenges the Centre is encountering. The Centre operates on the numerous donations from generous development partners like you.
We are open to partner with any well-meaning donors to this effect and ready to share more information on our strategic objectives, our mission and indeed vision.
We also welcome opinions, suggestions, ideas and criticisms from all sectors to perfect our cause.
We construct our ideals on an open-door policy on dementia that is informed by positive criticisms from a spectrum of experts in the field of ageing and dementia. We are more than happy to receive any form of donations from individuals as well!”
Anderson Simfukwe, Executive Director/ Spark of Life Master Practitioner
Aged Care and Service Centre
P.O. Box 430211
Nakonde
Zambia
Email: andersons.acsc@gmail.com