Click on the link below for a full calendar of events for January and February:
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We live in an extraordinary time: increasing numbers of us are living longer than ever imagined before. It is a major achievement of modern science and healthcare. The tough part of longevity is working out how to ensure those extra years are spent happy and financially secure and living independently engaged in activities we value.
Anyone with grandparents or older parents has seen that survival until a later age exposes people to vulnerabilities that can make the ingredients for a happy life a challenge to achieve. As a society, we cannot slack off in acknowledging and responding to these challenges.
The cost of looking after a rising number of older people raises serious concerns about the sustainability of current provisions of care, especially when there are competing claims on the limited resources of a country.
It is into this context that the UK has launched its Index of Well-being in Later Life, an authoritative reporting on what matters most for a good life in old age. It identifies how older people are doing in different aspects of their lives under five key areas — social, personal, health, financial and environmental. The knowledge it generates should take us a step closer to achieving greater well-being in later life, whoever we are and whatever our circumstances may be.
Well-being refers to the happiness and life satisfaction of an individual. It points to a stock of personal, familial, and community resources that help individuals cope well when things go wrong. Well-being is a state in which an individual is financially comfortable, healthy and engaged in meaningful activities.
Those who are not doing well are very likely to live on their own, do not have a strong friendship base and are largely disengaged from their local community. The vast majority have a long-standing illness or disability and are financially poor.
Counting your blessings
Among the key factors in your happiness in later years is an active social life. This might include going to a cinema, museum, historical site, taking part in arts activities, events or play, being member of a social or sports club, or being active in a community or voluntary group. What they all share is a social element which prevents isolation and loneliness — feelings very destructive for a state of well-being for all, but particularly for older people.
Who we live with, whether we connect with younger generations, and whether or not we have good cognitive skills are also strong determinants. It is interesting that factors such as good health or money are important, but not to the same extent as being socially engaged.
What about if you end up caring for a partner? Well, a higher intensity of obligations for family members does have a negative effect, and lower intensity of help and caring has a positive effect. It’s not totally black and white: caring obligations in general can offer a sense of purpose. But it is damaging for other things such as maintaining a job when care duties become onerous.
Physical activity is very important to well-being along with an open attitude to trying things out and a positive outlook towards an active and engaged life. Sound advice for any age, you might think.
Really critical is just how important the social circle becomes for well-being among older people. According to the Age UK’s WILL index, it counts for about a third of individual well-being. People can stomach poor health and financial poverty if they enjoy secure networks of family, friends and community.
Individuals who hold the key to understanding how well-being can be maximised, many of them are older than 70 emphasise how extreme old age is no barrier to experiencing happiness in later years.
It is true that where cuts in central and local government funding for older people act as a crucial obstacle, affecting provision of community and public services, and a particular consequence is the limiting of communal spaces for older people to socialise, participate and access essential healthcare and social care.
It is crucial to sustain decent services for older people, who, without alternative arrangements such as bus services are forced to stay at home and become cut off. An ageing population need not be an unhappy one. They deserve better and we must do more to help them.
CJSA Committee and staff work tirelessly to ensure that all senior members of our community remain part of, and not apart from, the community. It is so important to encourage the older members of our community to reach out and participate in what we have to offer so that they can be included in whatever we have to offer so that well-being in later life can be something that each one of us can strive for.
Diana Sochen Executive Director
SOCIAL AND PERSONAL
We extend our warmest wishes on the following special occasions:
Births
David and Yvette Polovin — grandson
Collette and Barry Levin — granddaughter
Judith Resnick — great-grandson
Batmitzvah
Veronica Belling — granddaughter
Morris and Thelma Rozen — grandaughter
Engagement
Janine Caspar — grandson
Special Birthdays
Sarah Burnett 92nd
Harry Epstein 80th
Hymie Kaplan 70th
Irma Kessler 70th
Sally Schapiro 90th
Condolences to members who have lost family:
Lily Ageyev — Son-in-law
Debbie and Harry Epstein — cousin
Tanya Landsman — mother
Anita Shenker — sister
Frieda Tucker — son
Condolences to the family of members who have passed away:
Sheila Beder, Rhona Goldberg, Ada Kahn
We welcome New Members to the CJSA family:
Deborah Hayes, Eugene and Florence Weinberg, Dr Lawrence Leve, Hilda Wilck
Thinking of those members who are ill:
Lorraine Sher
Special Events and Outings December — booking essential
3 December: Outing for Southern Suburbs to Brownies and Downies Restaurant
4 December: Outing for West Coast to archives
7 December: Men’s Schmooze Milnerton 10.30 David Hersch
10 December: Outing for Southern Suburbs to Muizenberg for a fish and chips lunch
11 December: Twilight Supper Sea Point 17h30 Chris Nissen of the Human Rights Commission R70
Outing for Milnerton to the archives
12 December: Outing for Sea Point to Suikerbossie
13 December : Twilight Supper Milnerton 18h30 End of year party with the band Echo and the Merry Men R70
18 December: Outing for Milnerton to Kalk Bay to Save our Sea Exhibition
Outing for Sea Point to Gangster Museum of Cape Town
19 December: Men’s Schmooze Wynberg 10.00 Rabbi Greg Alexander
20 December: Southern Suburbs Lunch 12h00 Entertainment by the band Echo and the Merry Men R70
West Coast 10h30 End of year tea with Rosemary and June R10
