ABU DHABI, (Pakistan Point News - 30th Sep, 2020) Coinciding with the International Day of Older Persons, the Department of Community Development, DCD, stresses the important role of the elderly citizens and residents in community development, and the importance of investing in their knowledge, experiences and skills that contributes in strengthening and developing the progressive system in various fields in the community.
On this occasion, Dr. Mugheer Al Khaili, DCD’s Chairman, elaborating further said, "With the constant global changes and challenges, the wise leadership continues to support and care for the UAE citizen and resident elders as they are the true treasures of this nation, as they are its legacy and history that brings back with benefits to the community."
He continued, "According to the surveys conducted by the department during the pandemic period, have shown that 98 per cent of the elderly’s lives have changed and 92 per cent of the elderly have full confidence in the specialists during the pandemic, while 89.7 per cent of the elderly expressed full confidence in government health facilities. Seventy per cent of the community members expressed their desire to help the elderly during the pandemic and teach them how to shop on the internet and deal with other daily needs."
Dr. Bushra Al-Mulla, Executive Director of the Community Development Sector, indicated that the department is working on preparing the quality of family life strategy, which comes inclusive to senior citizens.
The technical team for the strategy of quality of life of the elderly citizens held six group sessions focusing on seniors who are over the age of 60, to learn about life’s challenges, and more than 100 documents were reviewed with 15 specialist authorities, and as a result of that, 17 social limitations were identified which will be addressed, she added.
Al-Mulla affirmed, "The elderly category is an important focus of our priorities and we are working to study and analyse the current and future social challenges that affect the quality and stability of the family as a whole in addition to the challenges emanating from the family study survey, the quality of life survey, and life during Coronavirus pandemic survey. Through this strategy, current policies and laws will be reviewed and new programmes will be proposed to support and enable the quality of family life."
"Through the Senior Citizens Quality of Life strategy, an emphasis will be placed on the importance of activating the role of senior citizens in society, which will be implemented through a set of programmes and initiatives, after studying and recommending them, which will contribute to raising the quality of life," she said in conclusion.
