Nowadays, people’s awareness towards the society is decreasing. People become more selfish and careless to the others, especially the youngsters towards the elder. Some of the young people do not like to take care of elder people because of their business, activities, and least empathy of elderly.

They were happy to sing a song together

From the problems above, the VDMS Regional Representative of Central Java initiates an event to increase awareness of the elder people and to gain empathy among others. There is a retirement house named Wisma Rela Bhakti, which takes care of many elder people who are abandoned by their own family. The volunteers who take care of the elder are young nurses. We hope that this event will give a positive contribution to the elderly and the participants.

We started with opening remark and opening prayer from the chairperson. After that, VDMS grantees began to entertain all of the grandmas there. There were 15 grandmas and 5 caretakers. The grandmas looked very happy and the grantees could get closer to the grandmas. They are like to sing. They also like to dance jaipongan. We sang many songs and danced together until tired. Then, we assisted the grandmas to share what they had in mind. We also listened to the caretakers’ experiences in taking care the grandmas. They were voluntary assist the grandmas with minimum fee. They don’t really mind about the money because they serve with their heart. Their patron for doing any activities is Mother Theresa. They want to be like Mother Theresa who helped many people. After sharing session we had lunch together and finally came to the closing remark. The grantees gave souvenirs and daily needs to them.

This activity surely brings many benefits, not only for one person but for the whole society in our own life. The benefit for personal itself are : participating in social activity, increasing the consciousness about elder people, gaining personal empathy, building carefulness to each other and also knitting relationship among VDMS members. Those Benefits hopefully will lead us to a better society.