In order to honour their Father, the Wife, Sons and Daughters of the Late PHILEMON OMARI MBAGA decided to establish the PHILEMON OMARI MBAGA FOUNDATION with the Mission to Improve the quality of life of older people by supporting them to live their lives with dignity, remain active, healthy and living independently in their communities as well as to rid the minds of the older people of the fear that age means decline and retirement means loneliness, isolation, loss of prestige and so on.

The Foundation will work assiduously to re-instil in the elderly minds the confidence that age and productivity are not mutually exclusive. It does this by utilizing their experience and maturity in activities that serve the needs of the community.

Three Major challenges older people face:

• Poverty

Economically, older people are among the poorest in the society. Various groups of older people such as peasants, herdsmen and fishermen do not belong to any formal social security system. Retired older people who are members of the Social Security Schemes face problems resulting from inadequate benefits and bureaucratic bottlenecks. Furthermore, the existing poverty reduction strategies do not include older people.

(b)  Diseases

The majority of people become old with poor health due to poor life styles and poor nutrition during their childhood; women heavy work load, and frequent pregnancies. Prolonged diseases are a common feature among many older people.  Additionally, health services are not easily accessible to the majority of older people besides they are expensive.  Health care professionals on the other hand lack motivation and are not adequately trained to handle older peoples’ illness.

• Inadequate care

The movement of young people from rural to urban centers has left the majority of older people lonely and unprotected. Moreover HIV/AIDS pandemic has taken away lives of the majority of young people. On the other hand older people are increasingly called upon to care for themselves and their orphaned grand children.

In order to help the old people get out from the above challenges PHILEMON FOUNDATION aims at

• Sensitizing and mobilizing the older people, individually or in groups in establishing income generating activities as well as find employment for those who are still able to work.
• Since old age is a cross cutting issue and the majority of people enter old age unprepared hence becoming a burden to the community, we will educate and sensitize the society on the role of older people and the need for the youth to prepare themselves for responsible old age.
• Educating older people the importance of medical insurance in order to get good medical care.
• Creating awareness to the families and the society at large with regard to their responsibilities in taking care of their parents and older people in their communities.
• Design and establish physical exercise activities for the older people so that they can live a healthy life.