National Senior Citizens Centre Launches Program to Connect Older Persons to Opportunities
In a bid to break the barriers on the continuing engagement of skills, expertise and years of experience of older persons after retirement, the National Senior Citizens Centre (NSCC), has launched its Continuing Engagement Bureau (CEB) Program.
The program aims to capture and aggregate the talents, interests and resources of retirees from formal and the informal sectors and connect them to opportunities for their continued valuable and meaningful contributions to society, through volunteerism or paid employment.
The Director General, NSCC, Dr. Emem Omokaro while speaking at the launch of the CEB Program and Stakeholders Sensitization and Capacity Enhancement, said the Program targets firstly senior citizens who are retired professionals, experts and practitioners in diverse fields who still carry the torch and have the passion and desire to continue to engage their experiences, skills, competences, networks and their networths in serving their communities and their country.
She stated that the NSCC through the CEB Program is working to maximize the latent potentials of the older persons and also to reinvent themselves by reinventing roles and finding new opportunities.
“The Continuing Engagement Program also has provisions for older farmers and artisans both in the rural and urban centres who would be encouraged to register on the portal as Cooperatives and to be connected with opportunities for productive activities and for markets”, said Omokaro who further added that “We are looking at the fundamental human rights of older persons. Right to work, maximize their potentials, and right to access the labour market in whichever form they wish to”.
Furthermore, she noted that another driving force for the NSCC is its optimistic perception that Ageing comes with opportunities just as it comes with challenges, adding that the Centre is exploring the opportunities, one of which is to keep the senior citizens active and facilitate opportunities for them to continue to utilize their skills and passions in whatever way.
Commenting further she said, “The idea behind this is to create a platform where they can now fill in and create their own profiles, narrate their own experiences and their skills on the web, through an app and then also create an opportunity for public and private organizations who see the need for these old, wise and experienced hands to fill roles in their organizations.
“NSCC is a facilitator; we know the values and the assets that our senior citizens carry. We know they are carrying capacity and then also, this provides for them a healthy lifestyle. They are engaging their faculties, rising up and moving out, this is healthy Ageing. They are also filling the gaps through intergenerational mentoring which is fast losing its place in Nigeria, and creating opportunities for organizations who have a need for special skills”, she stated.
Dr. Omokaro announced that the Centre is creating platforms for connections as they are willing to enter into partnership with any organization that wants to harness the experience of older persons either as a group or individual placement and then negotiate age-friendly environments.
“Once we have done the connection through the job creation partnerships then it is left for them and the employers to now enter into those specific labour market agreements which NSCC will also oversee”, she disclosed.
The launch of the NSCC Continuing Engagement Bureau Program which also included the Portal and Jingle, had dignitaries from different Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as the private sector in attendance to show their support to the Centre and to also better understand ways they can key in to ensure job creation for older persons through the Program.
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