50+ Elderly Empowerment | Value Senior's Lives

We often hear people saying that after middle age, our learning ability and memory will deteriorate. Hence, learning new technologies development from computers, communication, and consumer electronics products becomes more challenging for most people after a certain age. Furthermore, the way we communicate, after middle age, with younger generation, is likely to be viewed annoying as we are keen to lecture and give instructions, but is this really true?

In fact, we have discovered, off the classes offered by many social clubs or community colleges that more and more people aged above 50 have been taking initiatives to learn and study new things. They are looking for their own interests to improve their expertise, and the diverse learning styles have gradually broken the boundary of age and the geographical restrictions...

During the COVID-19 pandemic period in 2021, like most organizations, the Mustard Seed Mission (MSM) was required to comply with social distancing rule. As a result, many senior citizens, whom we have deemed as our learning partners, felt anxious because they cannot continue to participate in-person classes. Alternatively, MSM has especially held an online reading and sharing session for senior citizens, targeting to invite people over 45 years old through the online meeting software. Online learning allows us to get across regional restrictions. Every month, we host to read one book online with subjects related to issues that senior people may face, we read and discuss online together.

The book, “The Second Mountain”, says that the second mountain in life, unlike the first mountain that we were pursuing money and success, is meant for serving and making contributions to the society.

As mentioned in the book "Be Your Own Work Designer", the workplace environment may be unpredictable, but we can make some adjustments to make our work more suitable to our lifestyle.

The book "Anti-Aging Class for Seniors" mentions that through weight training, aerobic exercise, diet, and lifestyle adjustments, we can become more energetic and younger. As a result, our last ten years of life span will not necessarily be spent in a hospital bed.

"Apart from experience, what are we left with" mentions how a seasoned employer can help Airbnb become the world's top online accommodation platform through his own experience, workplace wisdom, global perspective, high EQ, and insight.  The cumulative years of workplace experience have not been in vain, these experiences can not only help others, but also help society.

"Rabbit, this is just a process" talks about various troubles of a middle-aged German man is facing, while using his sense of humor, complaining about his wife and his own body. 

The "Declaration of Independence for Elder Women", through the perspective of single senior-aged women in Japan, presentsing discrimination against senior-aged women in Japanese society. On the contrary, Taiwan appears to still have room for improvement in this regard. 

Since 2020, MSM has continued to invest in middle-age training fields, through the elderly people pre-care class, sewing class, undying flower class, coffee class, online reading and sharing session, e-commerce class, and enterprise career for elderly citizens, part-time job opportunities to swap for housing accommodation… etc. We are trying to lighten up the imagination of new life with elderly citizens, promoting the ideas that senior people do not work for money, but to serve others through work. With this purpose in mind, one can embrace the joy of both physical and mental training through social services, ultimately, creating an ideal and healthy life.

50+ Elderly Empowerment project encourages middle-aged and elderly people to re-enter the workforce and contribute to various fields in society, such participation will enrich their life and further create a fulfilling new life post-retirement.

Empower senior citizens aged more than 50-years with learning new skills and value their lives.

57-year-old Mei went to Hualien for work exchange after 1 month of her retirement. Including arranging the environment, catering, baking, harvesting or weeding, the 2 week of work exchange is flexible and challenging. 

For example, Mei had been in administrative work for a long time, now she has to help sweep leaves and carry branches to the trash can. "It's a big challenge for me, but I also get physical training through cleaning like this." Mei also shares, "When you go to an unfamiliar environment, you can fully immerse yourself in that situation, and the people and things you encounter will be particularly impressive, which will be very good memories in this life. "

It seems that the trend of declining birthrates and an aging population in Taiwan is irreversible. The National Development Council predicts that Taiwan will enter a super-aged society in 2025 in that one out of every five people will be an elderly person over the age of 65; By 2034, more than half of the country will be well over 50 years old. The "50+ Senior Empowerment Program" is designed to encourage middle-aged and elderly people to re-enter the labor market and social services after retirement, to develop a new kind of retirement life together.

In the movie "Soul", there is a soul No. 22 who cannot feel the spark of life and has been in the life prep-class for billions of years. He is afraid of taking risks, afraid of rejections which leads to him unwilling to move on to the next stage of life as failure will hurt his self-confidence. Do you also fail to realize your dreams because of your fear of taking risks? 

Have you ever thought that after retirement, you can still do work exchange like young people do?
Have you ever dreamed of, after retirement, leaving your home for two weeks to live in a different place?

The Mustard Seed Mission Hualien Vocational Training Center launched the "Work Exchange for the seniors" event, to invite our silver-haired friends for a soul adventure, to transform the fear in the heart of a middle-aged and to bravely pursue the dreams their hearts so desire.

This year, as soon as the event was launched, our phone started ringing off the hook by the flooding inquires! On the day of the briefing, there were even friends who came to Kaohsiung by car from Chiayi, Nantou, and even Taichung despite the searing temperature brought by the noon sun!

Many of these seniors were puzzled by the fact that they are invited to work at such an advanced age. Among them, some decided to retreat because their children said: "Why would anyone want you to work when you are so old? " However, they eventually summoned up enough courage to make phone inquiries; in addition, among the participants there are also couples and friends. We gave credit to those who are willing to take the first step and get to know more. Even though everyone is 50+ years old, we feel their excitement and expectation during the process of interaction; we also feel the energy they radiate which shows they are ready to realize their dreams.

  

When serving the seniors, we often hear them talking about the first half of their lives, which most of the time were spent satisfying the needs of families at the cost of sacrificing the need of themselves. They look forward to living for themselves after retirement, to realize the dreams they had in their youth. A life free to do anything whenever they like.

Our "Work Exchange for Seniors" program has been launched in Hualien Training Center several times. Every time we see photos and words shared in the group, the true joy of them are infectious which made others in the group want to go as well. Through the heartfelt sharing, a social support network for each other was established which is one of the achievements our 50+ program desires. We hope that our silver-haired friends will dare to pursue their dreams with open arms, live their lives to the fullest and strive to make the most out of their retirement age.

According to the published statistics of estimated population by the National Development Council in August 2020, the age structure of the elderly population in our country is changing rapidly. In 2020, the super-old population (over 85 years old) accounted for 10.3% of the elderly population, and it will increase to 27.4% in 2070. 2050 will be the year where the number of aging population nationwide accounts the most.

When Takfork Baptist Church in the Qianzhen District of Kaohsiung was doing community ministry services, it observed that many elderly in the community had nothing to do and no daily activity planning at all. Worrying about the effect of such inactivity on rapid aging as well as hoping to develop diversified service projects for the elderly, with the assistance of the 50+ projects of the Mustard Seed Mission, 50+ silver-collar lecturers were introduced to lead a series of physical and spiritual courses for the elderly in the community, providing a good learning atmosphere and environment for the elderly who used to do nothing but wandering in the park. They felt warmth and being cared for. Through such courses, these elderly also had their own potentials discovered. New courses were therefore designed and developed by professionals and shared in the classroom stage. The series of such services also indirectly drove the support and participation of stores nearby. A good example of ripple effects: starting from a service point and then extends outward gradually. Seeing needs in the community, responding to such needs, helping each other and loving each other.

With the grand army of nearly 100,000 retiree annually in Taiwan, the majority are retired without preparation and a clear goal for their retirement life. The 50+ project ministries of The Christian Mustard Seed Mission hope that, through designing training courses suitable for the mature-aged, self-exploration and workplace experience, etc., people who are soon to be retired or already retired will be encouraged to face up their own “ third “ life.  It also encourages these people not to throw away their past life experiences, turning these treasures into something useful to the younger generation or developing a different life path of their own. Let every second and every minute in the retirement not to be used for anti-aging but to live healthily in the moment.