The dream - a spark of solidarity!

A story of Local Response from Bugonga community, Uganda, by Pamela Amooti (HENU)

The dream - a spark of solidarity!

I decided to join HENU after they came to my school/university. They came and they prompted us to think of ourselves 40 or 50 years from now, and think of the life we would love to live as old persons, our dream in fact for our old age. Then they asked us to think of our own jajjas (grandmothers), and share our dream for our jajjas.

Then they shared with us some of the challenges faced by older persons today, and they told us of the different communities they worked with and how they were looking for volunteers to help the jajjas reach their dreams of happy and healthy lives.

And so, I joined as volunteer in another project but was also partly involved with the older persons groups to render help where I could.

I learn from being with the grannies, I learn about their lives, what motivates them. How they manage to see through their daily challenges in life, and how they overcome them. I have learned that what these older persons need more in life is just love and people around them. That to them is more important than material things because that can come at a later stage and one may have all the wealth they need in life but not happy, yet happiness is an important factor of life, as well as being around people.

Because we receive a lot of love from these older persons when we visit them and interact with them, they help us model our life, and our ways of living. We try to reflect on how we would like to be treated in our older age. My own jajjas have passed on, but here I have found some jajjas with whom there is a real connection. Now when I visit them I always try to bring them a little something, because they give me so much love.

When we connect to our own dream, then we can relate to the dreams of others and show solidarity.