NGO Forum on Ageing 5-9 April 2002

Juan Carlos Aparicio: 
Society can benefit from the experience and knowledge of the elderly

By : NGO Forum on Ageing
April 6, 2002

The Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Juan Carlos Aparicio inaugurated yesterday the World NGO Forum on Ageing, the main aim of which was to encourage the participation of the civil society in the new International Plan of Action on Ageing of the UN , that will be discussed and approved at the next World Meeting on Ageing. The importance of the Forum consists in that its final conclusions, which will be taken from six different working areas, will be an important reference to the governments which will be presented at the Meeting. The Minister of Labour declared that society can and must benefit from the experience and knowledge of the elderly, as well as be favoured by a greater importance. At the opening event, Aparicio expressed his hope for the Meeting to promote a change of perception in society about ageing, without omitting the necessary social policies to overcome the dependency, which the minister identified as the main problems of the elderly people.

To the Minister of Social Affairs, the duty of the governments is to make it easier for all citizens to have access to all the available resources, specially for those elderly people who are in poor health. He also emphasized the participation and social collaboration of all the civil society through all its organizations.

For her part, Oilda Montoya, co-president of the World NGO Forum on Ageing, pressed the governments, civil society and the elderly themselves to get a consensus. For Montoya, the problem of ageing can be an advantage if we can take advantage of the richness of ageing. She emphasized the necessity of facing ageing from the guarantee of rights, that is, of eliminating the discrimination and vulnerability of the elderly. In this direction, the co-president of the Forum said that the age factor is nowadays discriminatory in our society. Afaf Mahfouz, former president of CONGO, expressed her disagreement with the limited relevance that, in her opinion, the UN was giving to the Second World Meeting on Ageing, in comparison to others of different matters. For Mahfouz, the Forum should be an opportunity to share experiences between NGO and get a better society for the elderly. The director of the Division of Social Policies and Development of the UN, Johan Scholvinck, urged the civil society and its organizations to collaborate in introducing the Plan which will be approved by the Meeting. José María Álvarez del Manzano emphasized the role of the elderly in the basic structure of the family and expressed his wish of reaching improvements in the living standard, a greater social awareness and giving more to the people older than 65 years.

“ The Meeting should promote a change of perception in society about ageing, without omitting the necessary social policies to overcome the dependency.”