OLDER PEOPLE ARE……

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER
 ….so we can be a community for one another.

Aling Presing was sitting in the house of her cousin Nini drinking coffee and chatting.  They had grown up together in the province and eventually ended up in Manila because of work.  Both lived in urban poor areas that were not too distant from each other.

Eventually the conversation came around to Aling Presing’s being chosen as a community gerontologist in their community based program of the elderly.  Nini has never heard of such a thing and had many questions.  How much did it pay?  How did she know what to do?  How many hours a day id she work?  And the questions continued
long after the coffee and biko were consumed.

Not only the idea of a community gerontologist but an organized community of older people in a squatter area fascinated Nini.  Long after her cousin left she continued to think about it.  While washing clothes at the well, she discussed it with the others washing clothes.  Eventually, they asked if Aling Presing could come back and explain it again to a group of older people.  When she came, Aling Presing brought with her the business manager, the social secretary, the per counselor, the advocate, the collector for the burial fund, the fund raiser and the officers of the group.  They spend the whole day talking about their experiences.

And that was how older people began to organize older people without the direct intervention of a special community organizer.

The best organizer of older people after all, is an older person.