Today, the elderly are the fastest-growing demographic group in the world due to increase in life expectancy. According to the decree No. 2822/LSW of 2004, the elderly people are the population at the age of 60 and over. Based on the estimation of the current demographic data in the IXth Five Year 2021-2026 Socio-Economic Plan of Lao PDR, the country will enter into the elderly society in 2038. Thus in order to prepare the current young population to be the future elderly with resilient to abuses, they need to understand and address the issues currently faced by the elderly and advocate for policy change towards the elderly. Lao PDR has little study and record on elder abuse for advocacy of policy change. This project is aiming at empowering the youth to influence policy change towards the elderly. This will be achieved by involving the youth to study and address the issues faced by the elderly especially advocate for policy change. The elderly will be the active participants of the project in providing information on their abuses within the families and communities and in raising voices through the youth on how do they want to see policy and social changes towards the elderly. Finally, participation from older adults will be mobilized in order to create empowering intervention strategies that are designed in accordance with the requirements of the elderly and are in line with the principles of respect, dignity, and choice.

The solutions proposed will be the activities for the following expected outcomes :
1. The voice of the seniors on elderly abuse are heard by their family members and communities. This will be achieved by the following activities:
1.1 Baseline survey to screen elderly abuses in the target 40 villages in 3 districts
1.2 Establishment and training of the youth volunteers in data collection and advocacy for the prevention of the elder abuse
1.3 Dissemination of findings from baseline survey and policies of the government on the prevention of elder abuse
1.4 Campaign on the “Respect for Seniors and Life-Long Learning”

2. Models of care and support for the elderly relevant to the local context carried out by local government, private and community based social services. This will be achieved by:
2.1 Home visit to the vulnerable elderly people affected by violence and negligence
2.2 Provision of counselling service to the severely affected elderly by violence (both psychological and physical violence)
2.3 Support activities in sociological inclusion of the elderly and youth in community affairs

3. A better and effective policy and programme in providing social assistance and social protection for the elderly are promoted and adopted. This will be achieved by
3.1 Participation of the youth in different meetings at the district, provincial and central levels in updating policy towards the elderly
3.2 Support community radio programme on issues related to the elderly
3.3. Development of information education communication (IEC) materials for advocacy of the rights to protection of the elderly on social media.

Our Voice for the Rights and Respect of the Elderly 

The NT21 Hydro Power Company’s social safety net support and university scholarships for young people on the Nakai Plateau have helped affected families save money on caring for the elderly and educating their children. However, the unintended consequences of these supports include the abolition of traditional means of caring for the elderly and the creation of harm for the vulnerable elderly as they are abandoned, neglected, and exploited by their family members. Furthermore, new graduates struggle to reintegrate into their communities after experiencing life in urban settings. 

In 2021, NCA received funding from Voice for behavior changes in the communities in Nakai District towards the elderly. Three young female graduates from the local villages were recruited to advocate for the rights of the elderly. Project activities include the development of policy and legal frameworks on the elderly; dissemination of 2019 Decree 473 on the Elderly; establishment of the elderly club in the villages; creation and capacity building of 64 young and aging peer educators, of whom 32 are the women, to advocate for change in the communities; and advocacy campaign for the rights of the elderly during the celebration of the Elderly Day in October . 

Unfortunately, we encountered numerous challenges during the project’s implementation, beginning with the MoU approval process with the government, which included the acceptance of our partnership with a faith-based organization, Metttadham, the uncertainty between the provincial and central authorities to represent the government in signing the MoU, resulting in the delay in the government MoU approval; followed by the capacity of female young graduates in project coordination, implementation, and monitoring, as well as harassment by our male government partners. Furthermore, during project implementation, we discovered that UNESCAP2 assisted in the formulation of the Elderly Strategy, which would have an impact on the implementation of the grant application’s major activity, which is the establishment of policy and legal frameworks for the elderly. Furthermore, in July 2023, our project region was hit by a flash flood, causing crop damage and disrupting people’s lives. 

We have strategically addressed all of the previously listed difficulties by responding to all official concerns on our MoU, such as modifying the project’s name and target area and removing Methadham from our MoU with the government, while in the meantime, we adapted the project workplan to enable us to implement some activities that are allowed by the local government. We combat staff harassment by male officials by disseminating and enhancing our protection policy at each quarterly meeting with district authorities, and we report incidences of harassment against our female employees to the relevant district authority, the Lao Women Union. Furthermore, we sent our young female staff to various skill trainings from Voice’s Linking and Learning program as well as from other development partners and CSOs for instance Swiss Contact and CORD, allowing them to advance professionally throughout the course of the three-year project implementation. 

During our journey with this project, we first learned to adapt to the changing situation; for example, though Mettadham was removed from our MoU with the government, we still included them as a resource organization for village level change mobilization towards the rights and respect of the elderly; and second, to seek support from our existing resources, such as our board members  to support our female staff in coordination with the government authorities and development partners for project advocacy and sustainability as well as advocate changes in the harassment of our female staff; then third, to be flexible to work with other development partner, for instance UNESCAP, to achieve our goal in the development of the policy and legal frameworks for the elderly by providing resources for reviewing and public consultation on the draft national strategy on the elderly; and lastly, to listen and address comments from all stakeholders of the project including the right holders at the community level and Voice Team on our project interventions, for instance, from our Participatory Action and Research with the elderly in the target communities, we heard their voices to revive Lao folk song and thus we supported them with the musical instruments and training how to apply the folk songs for dissemination for the elderly rights and then we also listened to the comment of Voice Team about gender imbalance in some of our project activities so we have addressed it by consultation with our right holders on how to increase more participation of women in our project activities; lastly. We have also learned from the quote of one of our elderly peer educators, Mr. Thongmi from Phonkham Village, Natan Sub district at our project closing workshop: “ the boat leaves us but the port still remains with us”, this has elaborated that the elderly in our project area have gained confidence and empowered to make changes in the communities amongst both younger and older generations to allow the elderly to actively participate in the development of their communities as well as in preservation of the tradition for the respect of the elderly. 

Finally, we are delighted to amplify that Voice Programme significantly contributes to change in our target communities, government offices, and inside our organization. We would like to see the continuation of this kind of support, that influences change at the institutional, community, and personal level. For example, our peer educators have become changemakers to advocate for change of the youth behaviors in our 16 target villages for the respect of the elderly, resulting in the celebration of the Elderly Day through different activities such as dissemination and refreshing of the elderly decree 473, in the support of the youth and the village authorities to promptly responded to the 2023 flood disaster as well as to develop the annual plan for village level interventions towards the rights and respect of the elderly. Furthermore, Nakai District and Khamouane Provincial authorities became familiar and accepted our inclusive working approaches with faith-based organizations and with the rights holders at the community level in advocating for the rights and respect of the elderly. For instance, Mettadham was welcome by the district authorities to provide counseling support to the 2023 flood-affected people in Natan sub-district and moreover, the elder peer educators from our target villages have been invited to the provincial-level consultation meeting on the draft National Strategy on the Elderly and their feedbacks have been addressed in the draft final version submitted for the approval of the government.   Our junior female staff have overcome all challenges with the local authorities and gained confidence in coordination and monitoring of project activities, finally our organization has been recognized to be the forefront CSO in Lao PDR fighting for the rights of the elderly, resulting invitations for the government and other development partners in various initiatives and meetings on the elderly issues such as participation in the elderly digital literacy survey, a regional workshop on enhancing digital literacy among elder persons in Asia and the Pacific.