Welcome! This is ilana Landsberg-Lewis, your host for the Wisdom at Work podcast: Elderwomen, Older women and Grandmothers on the Move!
What follows is a special and exciting 10-part series... 'Age With Rights and Dignity' - 10 interviews in which we will hear from older and younger advocates from different corners of the world. These committed champions and advocates will share with us why they care about the rights of older persons, and what they are doing to help bring a new United Nations Convention on the rights of older persons into being - for you and me, no matter how old we are now!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome.
This is Ilana Landsberg-Lewis,your host for the Wisdom at Work
podcast.
Elder Women, older Women andGrandmothers on the Move.
What follows is a special andexciting 10-part series.
Have you ever thought about howhuman rights plays an essential
and meaningful role in ourolder age?
Well, you're in the right place.
You're listening to Age withRights and Dignity 10 interviews
(00:22):
in which we will hear fromolder and younger advocates from
different corners of the world.
These committed champions willshare with us why they care
about the rights of olderpersons and what they are doing
to help bring a new UnitedNations Convention on the Rights
of Older Persons into being,for you and for me, no matter
how old we are.
(00:43):
Now Join the movement and raiseyour voice.
Go to the Age Noble HumanRights Day 2024 blog to find out
more that isA-G-E-K-N-O-W-B-L-Ecom and sign
the global petition for the UNConvention on the Rights of
(01:04):
Older Persons.
I'm also excited to introduceyou to two wonderful guest
interviewers, younger women whoare committed to these issues
and will be joining me in thisseries to interview some of our
esteemed guests Faith Young andKira Goenis.
Thank you for joining us, enjoythis special initiative, and my
thanks to Margaret Young, thefounder of Age Noble for
(01:27):
bringing this opportunity to usto hear from these important
guests who promote the humanrights and the dignity of older
persons the world over.
Faith.
Welcome to the podcast as aninterviewee, not an interviewer.
It's great to have you here,thanks.
So I thought it would be veryuseful and interesting to ask
you what, in your livedexperience or education, has led
(01:49):
to this moment where you'regetting involved in the
promotion of the rights of olderpersons.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Right, well, I guess.
Firstly, I'm finishing up myundergrad, but my study is in
business, so it's not reallyrelated to human rights or
anything like that related tohuman rights or anything like
that.
Really, I started to think moreabout how older person's rights
can be protected, or howthey're not being protected
right now, when I was working atan affordable housing
organization in British Columbia, and this organization
(02:15):
basically provides housing topeople who can't afford to pay a
regular market rent.
So there's a variety of tenantsand they kind of focus on
creating a safe space and mentalhealth support, health care
support, and there's a lot ofemphasis on community
development as well.
And so while I was workingthere, I noticed that a
disproportionate amount of thetenants were actually older
(02:36):
persons, and even though thisorganization doesn't just serve
older persons, there was a bigportion that are older persons
who ended up at thisorganization.
And then I've learned that olderpeople are disproportionately
impacted by homelessness andhousing insecurity, and I
learned that, whether it'sbecause they can't afford to pay
the market rates of rentanymore, maybe the pensions that
(02:59):
they receive aren't enough tocover the rent that's so high,
or sometimes their originalhomes are slated to be developed
, so they're torn down and thenthat leaves many of these older
people displaced or whether it'sbecause of healthcare reasons.
So that's how I started to thinkmore about older persons and
their rights.
And then, through my auntMargaret Young, her work with
(03:23):
Garup and Age Noble and all thestuff that she's doing, that's
how I was then able to go to theopen-ended working group on
aging in New York earlier thisyear, which was the 14th session
.
It was the last session of that, so that was pretty cool and
preparing for that then Istarted to learn more about what
a UN convention on the rightsof old persons would look like
(03:44):
and why it's needed and why it'simportant.
That's how I ended up thenbecoming interested in doing
more and learning more, and nowthat's led to me doing this,
which is really great because Iget to see not only the work
that some of these oldercampaigners are doing, but also
learning about their personalstories and their motivations
behind what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
You know, when I was thinking about speaking with you
, faith, and with Kira, one ofthe things that I thought about
was that I actually have notheard from young people why they
think intergenerational work isimportant.
I've heard a lot from olderwomen about why they think it's
so important to work with theirgrandchildren, other younger
people and have thatintergenerational solidarity
movement.
I'm really interested to hearfrom your perspective why do you
(04:27):
think it's important for youngpeople to be involved in
promoting the rights of olderpeople?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I think it might be a similar reason to how a lot of
older people feel that'simportant.
Just with anything, if you'reworking towards something and
you're working with other people, I think it's important to have
different perspectives andpeople can bring different
strengths and skills.
So just like how differentgenders or different races,
(04:53):
different backgrounds areimportant, different ages are
important as well to have in ateam or in a group of people who
are fighting towards something,and I feel like that will make
the movement more impactful,hopefully.
And I also think that havingyounger people involved, that
hopefully people will see that aUN convention isn't something
that's just for like a separategroup of people, like a static
(05:17):
older persons at one point intime, but that it's going to be
for everyone who grows older.
So that's why I thinkintergenerational involvement is
important.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I really agree with you.
As a young woman, do you havethoughts about gender and aging
and the need for convention?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, well, my thought is that being an older
woman is double the effect notdouble necessarily, but a lot
more challenges and uniquechallenges I guess that older
women face.
And, as a young woman, knowingwhat the challenges are for
women growing up, to know thatthere's even the added challenge
(05:55):
of being an older person as yougrow older is pretty, I guess,
scary or not nice.
I wouldn't want that to happenin my own life or in any of my
friends' lives or sisters' lives.
And then I was just thinkingalso of at the open-ended
working group that I attended,there was a side event where an
older woman spoke about how inmany cases, she and other older
(06:15):
women were expected to just giveup work at a certain age and
then expected to care for theirgrandchildren.
So I was thinking that havingthat autonomy taken away, like
you're just expected to dosomething you don't really have
the choice, is not somethingthat I want for myself either.
I mean, obviously, if youchoose to look after your
grandchildren, then that's fine,but if you don't want to, you
(06:38):
shouldn't have to.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting perspective,
because, of course,discrimination on the basis of
gender also has a life cycle.
It looks different at differentstages of life.
It there something inparticular that stayed in your
mind for you in terms of theinterviews that you've done or
(07:09):
the stories that you've heard?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, Well, I have to shout out both of the
interviews that I was part of.
When I was interviewing Moira,she changed the way that I saw
aging because she said, once youreach a certain age like 60 or
65, but then anything after thatyou're categorized as an older
person and then, even thoughthere's so much variety and
richness within that, buteveryone just views you as
(07:33):
belonging to a certain category,which you would never do for
ages zero to 40.
So I thought that that wasreally interesting to hear about
and as more and more peoplecome to realize that, then
hopefully this issue will seemthat much more important to
people.
And then, when I was speakingto Ferdushi, she talked about
how her organization that she'sa part of was the first one and
(07:55):
still one of the onlyorganizations to offer
microcredit loans, becausepeople were afraid that the
older people who received thesemicro credit loans wouldn't be
able to pay them back, but theyhave never had anyone default on
a loan.
So I thought that was prettyamazing, clear proof that older
people are capable and they have, like so much value to offer to
(08:17):
the community and they're ableto be involved in community
development based on their ownideas and capabilities.
So I thought that was veryinteresting and that there's
more opportunities like thatthat are needed for older people
.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That moves sort of beautifully into the convention
itself.
What's compelling for you abouta convention on the rights of
older persons?
What could happen to bring thisto fruition?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Well, I guess I would just start by saying that as
I've grown up, I've alwaysviewed the United Nations as
such a powerfulintergovernmental organization
or body that can influencepeople at all levels to make
change and to bring about goodquality of life for people and a
good standard of living.
That seeing that in action atthe Open-Ended Working Group was
(09:02):
pretty interesting and, yeah,seeing the involvement of all of
these activists, civilsocieties and campaigners who
are doing all this work wasreally cool.
I think me getting involved orstarting to get more involved at
this time is very interesting,and I've been very fortunate
because there's been a lot ofdevelopments in the past year
towards actually getting a UNconvention in place, so that's
(09:24):
really good to hear.
I know for some people it'sbeen a long time coming and
there's been such slow progress,but for me I've been able to
see a lot of progress happen, Iguess, in a short amount of time
.
I think a UN convention willbring about laws and policies
that will help to protect therights of older persons but also
bring about, as Vijay said inhis interview, change in
(09:48):
attitude from the ground uptowards older persons and aging,
and actually Garup is doing asocial media campaign that's
trying to get people to sharewhat they hope their older age
will look like, what they wantit to look like.
So I was trying to think ofwhat I would say, and it could
be anything something moreformal.
(10:08):
I guess, like you want theright to security, social
security as you age, or theright to participate in
community, or even somethingmore like being able to feel
safe at home, or feel safe onthe streets, streets or feel
that you're able to have goodhealth care, and then I was
thinking that I would want allof that and, as well, be able to
have the freedom to make my ownchoices and live autonomously,
(10:32):
because I think that's quiteimportant.
So hopefully a UN conventionwould enable all of that to
happen.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
That's the idea, Absolutely and finally, Faith.
What would you say to youngerpeople and to older people about
what you see as the role thatyou can play and other younger
people can play being involvedin bringing a convention into
being?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I think hopefully more younger people can see that
the UN convention affectseveryone at all ages, as Teresa
said in her interview.
That I really liked was that aUN convention will be not just
for older people, but it willalso be for all their families
or for anyone who is interactingor in contact in connection
(11:11):
with an older person, becauseany suffering that an older
person has or any lack ofprotection of their human rights
affects everyone else.
So I hope that more people willsee that and see how
interconnected everything is.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
If you think, about where you were before you
started doing any of this work,even before you started doing
the work on housing.
You think about where you werethere in relationship to
thinking about older people andolder people's lived realities
and all this diversity and theirrights, and you think about
where you are now.
What has that brought into yourlife?
That knowledge, thatunderstanding?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I think it's basically opened my mind more to
what the different as you saidrealities are out there, because
if I think of my owngrandparents, I never really put
myself in their shoes beforethis, in terms of what makes
them feel secure or what makesthem feel happy, and how that is
influenced by outside factorsthat in Canada or in Malaysia,
(12:09):
where both of my grandmas liveright now, might be provided to
them or might not be.
So just more of an awarenessthat things are different for
everyone and to pay moreattention, I guess, to what
everyone is facing.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I love that.
Well, thank you, faith.
Thank you for all of yourinvolvement in this wonderful
initiative, and you're reallyinspiring and thoughtful ideas
and thoughts that you've sharedwith us today.
For me, this process has beenmuch richer because you've been
in it, so I want to thank youfor that.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, I'm glad to hear that and I've learned so
much as well, so it's beenreally nice to be.
Welcome.
This is Ilana Landsberg-Lewis,your host for the Wisdom at Work
podcast.
Elder Women, older Women andGrandmothers on the Move.
What follows is a special andexciting 10-part series.
Have you ever thought about howhuman rights plays an essential
and meaningful role in ourolder age?
Well, you're in the right place.
You're listening to Age withRights and Dignity 10 interviews
(00:22):
in which we will hear fromolder and younger advocates from
different corners of the world.
These committed champions willshare with us why they care
about the rights of olderpersons and what they are doing
to help bring a new UnitedNations Convention on the Rights
of Older Persons into being,for you and for me, no matter
how old we are.
(00:43):
Now Join the movement and raiseyour voice.
Go to the Age Noble HumanRights Day 2024 blog to find out
more that isA-G-E-K-N-O-W-B-L-Ecom and sign
the global petition for the UNConvention on the Rights of
(01:04):
Older Persons.
I'm also excited to introduceyou to two wonderful guest
interviewers, younger women whoare committed to these issues
and will be joining me in thisseries to interview some of our
esteemed guests Faith Young andKira Goenis.
Thank you for joining us, enjoythis special initiative, and my
thanks to Margaret Young, thefounder of Age Noble for
(01:27):
bringing this opportunity to usto hear from these important
guests who promote the humanrights and the dignity of older
persons the world over.
Faith.
Welcome to the podcast as aninterviewee, not an interviewer.
It's great to have you here,thanks.
So I thought it would be veryuseful and interesting to ask
you what, in your livedexperience or education, has led
(01:49):
to this moment where you'regetting involved in the
promotion of the rights of olderpersons.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Right, well, I guess.
Firstly, I'm finishing up myundergrad, but my study is in
business, so it's not reallyrelated to human rights or
anything like that related tohuman rights or anything like
that.
Really, I started to think moreabout how older person's rights
can be protected, or howthey're not being protected
right now, when I was working atan affordable housing
organization in British Columbia, and this organization
(02:15):
basically provides housing topeople who can't afford to pay a
regular market rent.
So there's a variety of tenantsand they kind of focus on
creating a safe space and mentalhealth support, health care
support, and there's a lot ofemphasis on community
development as well.
And so while I was workingthere, I noticed that a
disproportionate amount of thetenants were actually older
(02:36):
persons, and even though thisorganization doesn't just serve
older persons, there was a bigportion that are older persons
who ended up at thisorganization.
And then I've learned that olderpeople are disproportionately
impacted by homelessness andhousing insecurity, and I
learned that, whether it'sbecause they can't afford to pay
the market rates of rentanymore, maybe the pensions that
(02:59):
they receive aren't enough tocover the rent that's so high,
or sometimes their originalhomes are slated to be developed
, so they're torn down and thenthat leaves many of these older
people displaced or whether it'sbecause of healthcare reasons.
So that's how I started to thinkmore about older persons and
their rights.
And then, through my auntMargaret Young, her work with
(03:23):
Garup and Age Noble and all thestuff that she's doing, that's
how I was then able to go to theopen-ended working group on
aging in New York earlier thisyear, which was the 14th session
.
It was the last session of that, so that was pretty cool and
preparing for that then Istarted to learn more about what
a UN convention on the rightsof old persons would look like
(03:44):
and why it's needed and why it'simportant.
That's how I ended up thenbecoming interested in doing
more and learning more, and nowthat's led to me doing this,
which is really great because Iget to see not only the work
that some of these oldercampaigners are doing, but also
learning about their personalstories and their motivations
behind what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
You know, when I was thinking about speaking with you
, faith, and with Kira, one ofthe things that I thought about
was that I actually have notheard from young people why they
think intergenerational work isimportant.
I've heard a lot from olderwomen about why they think it's
so important to work with theirgrandchildren, other younger
people and have thatintergenerational solidarity
movement.
I'm really interested to hearfrom your perspective why do you
(04:27):
think it's important for youngpeople to be involved in
promoting the rights of olderpeople?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I think it might be a similar reason to how a lot of
older people feel that'simportant.
Just with anything, if you'reworking towards something and
you're working with other people, I think it's important to have
different perspectives andpeople can bring different
strengths and skills.
So just like how differentgenders or different races,
(04:53):
different backgrounds areimportant, different ages are
important as well to have in ateam or in a group of people who
are fighting towards something,and I feel like that will make
the movement more impactful,hopefully.
And I also think that havingyounger people involved, that
hopefully people will see that aUN convention isn't something
that's just for like a separategroup of people, like a static
(05:17):
older persons at one point intime, but that it's going to be
for everyone who grows older.
So that's why I thinkintergenerational involvement is
important.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I really agree with you.
As a young woman, do you havethoughts about gender and aging
and the need for convention?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, well, my thought is that being an older
woman is double the effect notdouble necessarily, but a lot
more challenges and uniquechallenges I guess that older
women face.
And, as a young woman, knowingwhat the challenges are for
women growing up, to know thatthere's even the added challenge
(05:55):
of being an older person as yougrow older is pretty, I guess,
scary or not nice.
I wouldn't want that to happenin my own life or in any of my
friends' lives or sisters' lives.
And then I was just thinkingalso of at the open-ended
working group that I attended,there was a side event where an
older woman spoke about how inmany cases, she and other older
(06:15):
women were expected to just giveup work at a certain age and
then expected to care for theirgrandchildren.
So I was thinking that havingthat autonomy taken away, like
you're just expected to dosomething you don't really have
the choice, is not somethingthat I want for myself either.
I mean, obviously, if youchoose to look after your
grandchildren, then that's fine,but if you don't want to, you
(06:38):
shouldn't have to.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting perspective,
because, of course,discrimination on the basis of
gender also has a life cycle.
It looks different at differentstages of life.
It there something inparticular that stayed in your
mind for you in terms of theinterviews that you've done or
(07:09):
the stories that you've heard?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, Well, I have to shout out both of the
interviews that I was part of.
When I was interviewing Moira,she changed the way that I saw
aging because she said, once youreach a certain age like 60 or
65, but then anything after thatyou're categorized as an older
person and then, even thoughthere's so much variety and
richness within that, buteveryone just views you as
(07:33):
belonging to a certain category,which you would never do for
ages zero to 40.
So I thought that that wasreally interesting to hear about
and as more and more peoplecome to realize that, then
hopefully this issue will seemthat much more important to
people.
And then, when I was speakingto Ferdushi, she talked about
how her organization that she'sa part of was the first one and
(07:55):
still one of the onlyorganizations to offer
microcredit loans, becausepeople were afraid that the
older people who received thesemicro credit loans wouldn't be
able to pay them back, but theyhave never had anyone default on
a loan.
So I thought that was prettyamazing, clear proof that older
people are capable and they have, like so much value to offer to
(08:17):
the community and they're ableto be involved in community
development based on their ownideas and capabilities.
So I thought that was veryinteresting and that there's
more opportunities like thatthat are needed for older people
.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That moves sort of beautifully into the convention
itself.
What's compelling for you abouta convention on the rights of
older persons?
What could happen to bring thisto fruition?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Well, I guess I would just start by saying that as
I've grown up, I've alwaysviewed the United Nations as
such a powerfulintergovernmental organization
or body that can influencepeople at all levels to make
change and to bring about goodquality of life for people and a
good standard of living.
That seeing that in action atthe Open-Ended Working Group was
(09:02):
pretty interesting and, yeah,seeing the involvement of all of
these activists, civilsocieties and campaigners who
are doing all this work wasreally cool.
I think me getting involved orstarting to get more involved at
this time is very interesting,and I've been very fortunate
because there's been a lot ofdevelopments in the past year
towards actually getting a UNconvention in place, so that's
(09:24):
really good to hear.
I know for some people it'sbeen a long time coming and
there's been such slow progress,but for me I've been able to
see a lot of progress happen, Iguess, in a short amount of time
.
I think a UN convention willbring about laws and policies
that will help to protect therights of older persons but also
bring about, as Vijay said inhis interview, change in
(09:48):
attitude from the ground uptowards older persons and aging,
and actually Garup is doing asocial media campaign that's
trying to get people to sharewhat they hope their older age
will look like, what they wantit to look like.
So I was trying to think ofwhat I would say, and it could
be anything something moreformal.
(10:08):
I guess, like you want theright to security, social
security as you age, or theright to participate in
community, or even somethingmore like being able to feel
safe at home, or feel safe onthe streets, streets or feel
that you're able to have goodhealth care, and then I was
thinking that I would want allof that and, as well, be able to
have the freedom to make my ownchoices and live autonomously,
(10:32):
because I think that's quiteimportant.
So hopefully a UN conventionwould enable all of that to
happen.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
That's the idea, Absolutely and finally, Faith.
What would you say to youngerpeople and to older people about
what you see as the role thatyou can play and other younger
people can play being involvedin bringing a convention into
being?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I think hopefully more younger people can see that
the UN convention affectseveryone at all ages, as Teresa
said in her interview.
That I really liked was that aUN convention will be not just
for older people, but it willalso be for all their families
or for anyone who is interactingor in contact in connection
(11:11):
with an older person, becauseany suffering that an older
person has or any lack ofprotection of their human rights
affects everyone else.
So I hope that more people willsee that and see how
interconnected everything is.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
If you think, about where you were before you
started doing any of this work,even before you started doing
the work on housing.
You think about where you werethere in relationship to
thinking about older people andolder people's lived realities
and all this diversity and theirrights, and you think about
where you are now.
What has that brought into yourlife?
That knowledge, thatunderstanding?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I think it's basically opened my mind more to
what the different as you saidrealities are out there, because
if I think of my owngrandparents, I never really put
myself in their shoes beforethis, in terms of what makes
them feel secure or what makesthem feel happy, and how that is
influenced by outside factorsthat in Canada or in Malaysia,
(12:09):
where both of my grandmas liveright now, might be provided to
them or might not be.
So just more of an awarenessthat things are different for
everyone and to pay moreattention, I guess, to what
everyone is facing.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I love that.
Well, thank you, faith.
Thank you for all of yourinvolvement in this wonderful
initiative, and you're reallyinspiring and thoughtful ideas
and thoughts that you've sharedwith us today.
For me, this process has beenmuch richer because you've been
in it, so I want to thank youfor that.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, I'm glad to hear that and I've learned so
much as well, so it's beenreally nice to be.
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