New Delhi, February 23, 2015: We all have to work for the cause and care of the neglected elderly persons and to motivate them to live a quality life which they deserve and suppose to live. With a mission to elevate the life conditions of the elderly people socialist and ad filmmaker Mr Kewal Kapoor unravels an all India social campaign today titled as, “Return of Million Smiles”. A purely social empowering campaign by Goldfish with an objective to defy the mindsets of declaring the old people dead before they die
Campaign unravels today over its official website launch www.returnofthemillionsmiles.com
The campaign invites the entire youth force of India to take pledge and their mutual responsibility for the parents and senior citizens. This campaign aims to reach out maximum population of India, and to run individual campaigns on various social media platforms i.e Twitter, Facebook. “Return of Million Smiles” believes that level of happiness of a society can’t be measured from the fact how beautiful or developed a city is but it should be measured by how happy people are in that society. This initiative is partly supported by GAIL.
Presently, India has around 90 million people above 60 years of age. With the changing socio-economic scenario, they are increasingly being left to isolation. In the surge of globalization which has broken boundaries and opened new horizons for opportunities, the youth are getting more and more self-centered around their career and success. Families have turns into nucleus entities. In this scenario, the ones who bear the brunt are parents. They are left, abandoned, discarded, helpless and lonely when they need their help the most.
Whilst speaking at the launch of this campaign Mr. Kewal Kapoor (Ideator – Return of Million Smiles) said, “Urbanization, modernization and globalization have led to changes in the economic structure of our country. However, the younger generation is searching for new identities, striving to touch new levels of success and achievements. In that, the parents are left behind to support themselves and live a helpless, lonely life. We all have to work for the cause and care of the neglected elderly persons and to motivate them to live a quality life which they deserve and suppose to live”.
He further added, “As life expectancy has increased from 41 years in 1951 to 64 years today, hundreds of old age homes have sprung up in India. Neglect of parents has become a big issue, so much so that the Indian government has passed “The maintenance and welfare of parents and senior citizens bill in 2006”, which makes it imperative for adult children to look after their parents. India as a nation is conducting a dangerous debate where age is pitched against age then against competency- we are working on an assumption that are carrying sad stereotype”
The age bracket of 60 constitutes almost 20 per cent of the total population in our nation, a number which is expected to increase to around 315 million by the year 2050. The old people are facing physical, psychological and economical helplessness. Apart from health issues that arise with age there are problems of illiteracy, widowhood and disabilities as well. The elderly in India are subjected to multiple discrimination issues, particularly older women.
According to a recent study, about 56 per cent of sons in India indulge in elderly abuse. At the national level, 31 percent of older persons reported facing abuse. Madhya Pradesh with 77.12 percent reported the highest incidences of elder abuse followed by Assam and Uttar Pradesh at 60.55 and at 52.00 percent respectively. Among Indian cities, elders face maximum abuse in Bhopal (77.12 percent) followed by Guwahati (60.55 percent) and Lucknow (52 percent). The National Capital Region has reported 29.82 percent elderly abuse. Mumbai is not far behind with 29.46 percent. Jaipur with just 1.67 percent turned is the safest city for elders. Most cases of abuse are never reported because of emotional considerations.
The most unfortunate part of the report is that even literate people couldn’t escape from abuse at the hands of their progenies. About 20 percent of those who had experienced abuse were graduates, 19 percent had education up to primary level and 16 percent were illiterates.
The best form of protection from abuse is to prevent it. This should be carried out through awareness generation in families and in the communities. In most cases, abuse is carried out as a result of some frustration and the felt need to inflict pain and misery on others. It is also done to emphasize authority.
It’s the time to rouse every possible bit to turn on those million smiles!!
Some facts to open your Eyes
- 55 million elderly sleep on an empty stomach every night. And that may not be necessarily due to poverty.
- Nearly 12 million old people are blind. And that is only because they cannot afford the cure for less than Rs. 1,000 for the operation.
- About 30 million old people are lonely. This is more than the entire population of Australia.
- The poor has less than 100 days of work. About 90 per cent have to continue to work even beyond 60 years of age if they want to live.
- More than 9 million people die every year in India. According to a WHO estimate, 60 per cent of these people die in utter physical and mental distress.
- It’s very amusing that senior leadership of most of the political parties is above 60 but they doesn’t pay significant attention to issues and problem of above 60 people in our country.
- Under reported /unreported issue of age is pushing our parent in silence and withdrawal, they are getting lonely, depressed and silences are scary
· We must take this debate beyond crisis of age; its crisis of our society that is abandoning their own parent…It’s a very very serious crisis.
ABOUT | KEWAL KAPOOR
Mr Kewal Kapoor has a diversified portfolio of being a well researcher, a proficient writer, investigator, journalist, producer, director, consultant, and a creative strategist.He had served as executive producer with utv, created first series on tax laws in country, created first human right show on indian television, did story on kargil martyer – one , contributed as journalist write up in Hindi dailies, researched , conceptualized and created couple of tv documentary show and series, directed and produced documentary Yah say desh ko dekho on Kashmir violence , in 2012 created , conceptualized work which deal for work and search within one self of values, and from last 2 year working on projects that focus on social communication and redefine spaces of how subaltern issue can be dealt in advertising and digital ecosyetm in different way, strong supporter of opening up door of public domain to minority of less abled, victim of social violence, sub alternal group and deeply interested in technology that can empower and enable these people also did some of the work for bbc radio 4 and have been consulting partner with couple of top notch advertising agency. This is first formal project of Gold Fish company owned , operated and managed single handly by Kewal Kapoor him.