Forty golden citizens gifted by Help Age Belize

Today, forty elderly residents of Belize City were provided with a warm meal courtesy of Help Age Belize. The organization provides meals to its members on a weekly basis but paused the program due to damage caused to its building by Hurricane Lisa. Ivorine Bulwer, Executive Director of Help Age Belize, says that despite the challenges the organization found it important to pay a visit to their members. According to Bulwer, the visit also served as an opportunity to assess the effects of Hurricane Lisa on the city’s elderly population.

Ivorine Bulwer, Executive Director, HelpAge Belize: “Normally on a weekly basis we do delivery of food or hampers to our shut ins and Thursday is a day we do deliveries. The important thing that we want to let the public be aware that there are a number of older persons within the community with needs. We had COVID and they had experienced a level of isolation and now the disaster, the hurricane disaster Lisa came and it’s concerning for us. So what we are going to do although we are confronted with managing our area at the Sister Cecelia and the compound we also saw it important to check on our older persons within their home setting to see how they’re coping, to identify if they have any damages and to just assess their general welfare. Yes you may be delivering the food but you have that opportunity to observe the setting, have an idea to look at their faces, have an idea to have some level of interaction and where necessary we can do intervention. I’ve already been in consultation and communication the National Council of aging we have our physiotherapist; we have our geriatrician and if need be we will make the necessary referral for if it’s mental counseling or intervention required that is being done.” 

One of today’s recipients, Neville Maheia, expressed his gratitude to the organization and spoke about how the visit helped to boost his spirits.  

Neville Maheia, Belize City Resident: “ I’m always thankful for things that are given you know  because in this world people need to give a helping hand there is a lot of people that are needy and me included but like I said I am appreciative. I hope you guys keep this up and  I hope you just try to reach out to people that are needy. I have a neuromuscular condition named Limb Girdle Myopathy Syndrome. It’s a milder form of muscular dystrophy it affects the muscles in your girdle area like from elbow to shoulder and from knees to hip the muscles from the fingers to the elbow normal and the ones from the knee to the toes are normal. It has early onset , show up in your teens because I was walking and everything it’s not like I was in the chair from the beginning of time. I fell in my chair when I was 30 years old because I used to be BTL’s auto mechanic for seven years and that’s it.”