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BOSNIA / ELDERLY
STORY: BOSNIA / ELDERLY
TRT: 2.44
SOURCE: UNFPA
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: BOSNIAN / ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 11 SEPTEMBER 2011, SARAJEVO, BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
1. Various shots, senior citizen volunteer Mirsada Kovacevic cleaning up apartment
2. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Mirsada Kovacevic, Volunteer:
“It feels much better at the Centre than sitting around at home. I had to retire on health grounds, but still feel I can, and want to do more for society.”
3. Med shot, Kovacevic leaving apartment near Sarajevo Airport
4. Med shot, former housing complex for Senior citizens destroyed in War
5. Various shots, NGO ‘ZAR’ Day Centre for elderly
6. Various shots, ZAR activist Nafa Dizdarevic interacting with senior citizens
7. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Nafa Dizdarevic, NGO ZAR:
“All senior citizens have a value, and retirement shouldn’t be seen as being the end of a life, but the start of something new.”
8. Various shots, participants involved in art class at center
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Faris Hadrovic, Assistant Representative, United Nations Population Fund:
“Opportunities for social life, continuing education, active aging, are very limited in Bosnia Herzegovina. What we’ve been doing with several partners, in particular NGO’s on the ground, is to create these services.”
10. Various shots, government buildings in Sarajevo
11. Various shots, UNFPA staff with Saliha Djuderija from Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees
12. SOUNDBITE (Bosnia) Saliha Djuderija, Assistant Minister, Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees:
“It is crucial to develop a policy, a programme or a strategy, that will result in the elderly having a better position.”
13. Various shots, City Square in Sarajevo featuring elderly men playing chess
14. Med shot, elderly men spectators watching
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Faris Hadrovic, Assistant Representative, United Nations Population Fund:
“They themselves, do not feel useful. Many of them would like to, but the society is such that it doesn’t really create that many opportunities for them, and this is what we’re trying to change.”
16. Various shots, senior citizens in class at ZAR Day Centre
Retired from work but still motivated to get out of her apartment in the morning.
As a senior citizen volunteer, Mirsada Kovacevic, makes the journey several days a week across Sarajevo, to attend a day care centre that has now become the biggest part of her life.
Mirsada’s journey takes her past many reminders of the war in Bosnia Herzegovina in the nineties – a conflict from which this society is still recovering.
One of the ruined landmarks, this housing complex for the elderly, constructed just as the war began, and never completed.
Small NGOs like this one, are trying to make up the shortfall in services for senior citizens.
This morning it’s French.
But a range of activities are offered – the driving force behind the Centre, Nafa Dizdarevic, a tireless advocate for her age group.
Supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) this Centre was the first of its kind in Sarajevo, and activists are pushing for more to be established.
Meanwhile, at Government level, UNFPA continues its efforts to push reform, supporting a social policy framework, based on the Madrid International Plan of Action on aging – the internationally accepted model for inclusiveness of an aging population.
With 15 percent of the population being over 65, and a third of those being poor, the needs of the elderly are pressing.
In bringing about change for the better, the seniors themselves proving more than capable of taking a lead.
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