Nexus of Good: Illuminating the twilight

When Sameen Ansari walked up to receive the Nexus of Good Annual Award at Federation House, New Delhi, little was known about this wonderful organisation — DOBARA — that was attending to the needs of the elders. What they are doing is truly remarkable and replicable in the true spirit of nexus of good.

DOBARA is a non-profit organisation focused on senior wellbeing, promoting healthy and active ageing, and aiming to provide social, mental, emotional, cognitive, and physical support for all aspects of ageing. It is the first of its kind senior well-being network and community platform with a goal to encourage and support seniors through intergenerational collaboration to make them stay active by using their skills, knowledge, and experience to help others in need. A sense of community, belongingness and a sense of purpose are essential elements for enhancing quality of life. These are valuable aspects for contented longevity.

Studies have shown that senior citizens contend with negative perceptions and stereotypes, ageism and discrimination. The portrayal of senior citizens aged 60 years and above as a burden, along with a lack of infrastructure in place to aid the process of ageing, led DOBARA to think of ways to get older people to get together to create numerous opportunities so that they experience physical integration, and not complete social isolation.

In all of its endeavours, DOBARA strives to inspire generations to visualise people of 60 and older as societal assets. To the elderly, DOBARA helps them find joy and live with dignity by implementing a wide range of interventions to ensure all-round well-being of the aged. Its goal is to encourage and support seniors to stay active by using their skills, knowledge and experience to help others in need. The organisation is making endeavours to create a silver reservoir and tap into its rich resources for spreading good around our world. There is a belief that a diverse group of people over 60 years of age require a cohesive and coherent approach which intentionally fosters caring and trusting relationships across generations.

Mateen Ansari, founder of DOBARA, is a gerontologist with a master's degree from the University of Southern California; and Sameen Ansari, her daughter, living in Europe, is the creative director.

The world came to a halt in March 2020, and so did the real-world well-being programmes at DOBARA. Sameen was visiting India when the world went into lockdown and saw first-hand how distressed her mother was about not being able to help elders in the DOBARA way.

This mother-daughter team worked together and decided to turn a negative situation into something that would provide hope and respite. Together, after days of brainstorming and planning, they came up with the DOBARA Virtual Wellbeing Programme which essentially converted DOBARA's real-world programmes into an online format using WhatsApp, and then later expanding to Zoom.

Mateen Ansari, Founder of DOBARA, said:

"One of the main factors we have to confront when dealing with senior citizen issues is loneliness. At DOBARA, this is a major point of focus. Our goal is to do our very best to prevent an elder from feeling lonely and isolated. To do this, in the past we used to focus a lot on socialising through events and engaging our seniors in multiple activities. Keeping this in mind, our current format of virtual wellbeing has the very same focus, which is to stave off the detrimental effects of isolation. The beauty of our virtual well-being program is that right from the very beginning of the lockdown we have been actively engaged with our members and this has been beneficial not just for our elder members but for all the members from all age groups because loneliness and social isolation are issues that concern us all.

Our hope at DOBARA is that our members find us to be a supportive and caring community where they can really thrive and flourish."

DOBARA boasts of a dedicated community of over 350 members and volunteers from around the world. Forging new links, DOBARA serves as a community partner and connector to solve problems, spread wellbeing and raise awareness about the importance of active and healthy ageing.

Being a resource network for all aspects of senior wellbeing, DOBARA noticed that there is a dire need for high-quality caregiver training for professionals, and also for family and friends of those needing care. DOBARA Cares Caregiver Training is the newest initiative by DOBARA to refine the quality of caregiving skills to help families and caregivers be prepared with the essentials of caregiving and life-saving skills to provide better care for their loved ones and patients.

Currently, there are two batches of Caregiver Training ongoing at the Udai/Omni Hospital and at the Safdaria Girls High School in Hyderabad, Telangana. There are waiting lists for future training.

We have all heard the saying: ''It takes a village to raise a child.''

At DOBARA it is said: ''It ALSO takes a village to help our elders age successfully, with grace and dignity.'' There is indeed so much to learn from this DOBARA initiative.

Views expressed are personal