Expressnews
Chennai: Athulya Senior Care, one of India’s largest exclusive senior care providers in assisted living and home healthcare services associated with HelpAge India to announce the commencement of the REACH Campaign, an initiative that offers rapid response helplines for emergency support to the Vulnerable Elderly. The initiative also saw significant contributions from other organizations such as Martin Charitable Trust.
The campaign was initiated in the presence of Thiru Shankar Jiwal, Commissioner of Police, Chennai. The initiative focusing on providing support to the vulnerable elder community affected by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown,will execute a plan of rescuing around 2500 homeless people across the city and provide them with shelter and essentials.
REACH’s primary interventions will include COVID-19 Crisis interventions for the elderly, rescue and rehabilitation of abandoned and destitute elders, psychological counseling and support, emergency support, and linkage to essential services and institutions(Police, Old Age Homes, Hospitals, Senior Citizen Associations, Department of Social Security and Legal Services), Combating abuse of elderly, imparting digital literacy, healthcare support, educating elders on their rights and entitlement, connecting elders to family members, provision of food, medications and many more.
Speaking on the initiative, Mr. G. Srinivasan, CEO, and Founder of Athulya Senior Care said, “It is heartbreaking to see how elders struggle in their day-to-day life to survive, especially the ones from the vulnerable sections of the society. It is estimated that there are 30 million elders in India who live alone without any support. They are hardly capable of working or managing their livelihood and this pushes them to extreme conditions of living in hunger and without shelter. We witnessed this phase take a drastic toll on them during the pandemic. They were affected physically, emotionally, and financially during this time and are still struggling to recover from the aftermath of the pandemic effects. REACH by HelpAge is a wonderful initiative that focuses on rendering assistance to support these vulnerable citizens. The campaign has been instrumental in enabling elders to lead lives of dignity, providing them with relief from isolation, poverty, and neglect, protecting them from abuse and harm, and building a sensitive and age-friendly society. We are extremely proud to be a part of REACH and will look forward to developing this further.”
REACH has currently assisted in supporting more than 12 lakh elders and has managed to provide COVID-19 crisis intervention to around 60,000 senior citizens. They have also rescued 8271 senior citizens from abuse and destitution and linked more than 73,000 of them under government schemes.
