Active ageing & volunteerism

Being active, for exam­ple in vol­un­teer­ing, can give a boost to a senior and make his life more mean­ing­ful and satisfying.

BY: Ngiam Tong Yuen

Active age­ing is a much talked about sub­ject nowa­days. So what is it? We can define is as “senior cit­i­zens liv­ing inde­pen­dent, active, healthy and sat­is­fy­ing lives”.

Achiev­ing this requires a mind­set change not only for seniors them­selves but also for younger peo­ple. The tra­di­tional image of an old per­son is that he is frail and needs help from young peo­ple who are more robust. There is no doubt that some old peo­ple, those who are in their late 80s and older, who fall into this cat­e­gory. Even for this group, med­ical sci­ence has pro­gressed far enough so that peo­ple stay healthy longer and gen­er­ally live longer as well. In Sin­ga­pore, 50 per­cent of us will live beyond 85. This means that newly “retired” peo­ple will spend more time in “retire­ment” than their par­ents and cer­tainly, their grandparents.

These newly “retired” peo­ple have been iden­ti­fied with the “baby boomer” gen­er­a­tion who are now enter­ing their 60s. They are dif­fer­ent from their par­ents – a high per­cent­age of them received ter­tiary edu­ca­tion, many of them are/​were high-​income earn­ers. Many held/​hold senior posi­tions in their organ­i­sa­tions. They are capa­ble of many more years of pro­duc­tive work. For their gen­er­a­tion, the word “retire­ment” has taken on a new mean­ing. “Retired” does not mean just a life of inac­tiv­ity and wait­ing for the inevitable. Thus, a mind­set change is begin­ning to take place in our coun­try – “active age­ing” is emerging.

To be inde­pen­dent, the “Active Ager” needs to have some finan­cial resources. When it comes to finance and money, one never has enough. Except for the poor, most peo­ple have suf­fi­cient means to sup­port them­selves and their spouses in some com­fort. We should be thank­ful for this. Being healthy is mostly in our con­trol. A stroll in East Coast Park on a Sun­day morn­ing will con­vince any doubter that Sin­ga­pore­ans are health-​conscious – young and old are hap­pily doing their thing. There was even a group of enthu­si­as­tic endurance ath­letes, both men and women, who hav­ing com­pleted their bicy­cle rides were hap­pily dash­ing into the sea for their swim­ming leg. This is not rec­om­mended for the major­ity of older peo­ple. We must exer­cise within our phys­i­cal lim­its. Sat­is­fac­tion is the end result of all we do. And we can do a great deal – learn­ing a new skill, tak­ing on a new career, per­haps at a slower pace than our pre­vi­ous jobs, travel, vol­un­teer for a wor­thy cause and so on.

Vol­un­teer­ing is rec­om­mended for Active Agers. Why? Of all the things we do, vol­un­teer­ing is per­haps the one thing that is done mostly for a cause greater than our­selves. This allows us to ful­fil some of our innate altru­is­tic feel­ings. Help­ing another per­son in need or con­tribut­ing to the solu­tion of a soci­etal prob­lem pro­duces a sat­is­fac­tion that is price­less – it can­not be mea­sured in dol­lars and cents. For many senior vol­un­teers, it is “pay­back” time and they are happy to be doing it. Apart from this emo­tional sat­is­fac­tion, there are also prac­ti­cal advan­tages of vol­un­teer­ing. He or she will make new friends. New ideas will be gen­er­ated. The mind will stay engaged. This alone is valu­able in keep­ing healthy. New skills will either be learned con­sciously or uncon­sciously. Vol­un­teerism will allow you “to take charge of your life”. Many of us who have retired will have expe­ri­enced the feel­ing of being “use­less”. Vol­un­teerism is an anti­dote that is guar­an­teed to work. The per­son or cause for which you are vol­un­teer­ing needs you … very much.

Where can you vol­un­teer? Check the web­site of the National Vol­un­teer & Phil­an­thropy Cen­tre (NVPC). There are about 500 Vol­un­tary Wel­fare Organ­i­sa­tions (VWOs) in Sin­ga­pore. They cater to a wide spec­trum of inter­ests and needs – from young chil­dren to elderly per­sons, from human to ani­mal wel­fare, from med­ical issues to sav­ing the envi­ron­ment and many oth­ers. If you have an inter­est that you think is not being catered to, you will be pleas­antly sur­prised. Some­one has already set up a soci­ety to pro­mote this cause. NVPC has set up a sec­tion for episodic vol­un­teer­ing. As the name sug­gests, a per­son does not need to com­mit to a VWO for a long period. He or she will be called for spe­cific events, for exam­ple, help­ing out at a fundrais­ing event like a walkathon. Doing episodic vol­un­teer­ing is a good way to find out what you are inter­ested in.

To end this arti­cle, men­tion must be made of RSVP Sin­ga­pore — the Organ­i­sa­tion of Senior Vol­un­teers. RSVP’s forte is to pro­mote vol­un­teerism among senior cit­i­zens. At last count, it sup­ported 10 dif­fer­ent com­mu­nity projects rang­ing from men­tor­ing for pri­mary school chil­dren, befriend­ing for­mer patients of the Insti­tute of Men­tal Health, pro­mot­ing IT lit­er­acy among senior cit­i­zens, being senior ambas­sadors for Sin­ga­pore at Changi Air­port and con­duct­ing learn­ing jour­neys for school stu­dents and other senior cit­i­zens. If you are above 50 and want to give vol­un­teerism a try, why don’t you con­tact RSVP at www​.rsvp​.org​.sg or general@​rsvp.​org.​sg. It will wel­come you!

Ngiam Tong Yuen, 70, spends most of his time with RSVP Sin­ga­pore — the Organ­i­sa­tion of Senior Vol­un­teers. He is an active vol­un­teer on the Board and in a num­ber of other com­mit­tees. He also gives talks reg­u­larly on active age­ing and vol­un­teerism. A chem­i­cal engi­neer, he is cur­rently a con­sul­tat in Work­place Safety and Health and he serves in var­i­ous com­mit­tees in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors in hopes of keep­ing in touch with things tech­ni­cal, for exam­ple, he is hon­orary sec­re­tary of the Soci­ety of Loss Prevention.