Ministry developing ‘Senior Citizen Experience Bank’

Kathmandu / Oct. 01: The Ministry of Women, Children, Gender and Sexual Minorities and Social Security has forwarded a process to develop ‘Senior Citizen Experience Bank’ with an objective of preserving and transferring the senior citizens’ life-long knowledge, skills, experiences and life-lessons to the new generation.

On the occasion of the 36th International Day of Older Persons, the Ministry has forwarded a new concept of connecting the experiences of senior citizens with coming generation by establishing them as valuable sources of nation’s knowledge, skill and experience.

Minister for Women, Children, Gender and Sexual Minorities and Social Security, Sita Badi, underlined that knowledge, skill, experience and life lessons of senior citizens are valuable intellectual and social assets.

“A process has been forwarded to develop ‘senior citizen experience bank’ along with the use of digital technology to institutionalize the preservation, archiving and passing down the experiences of the senior citizens to new generation,” she said.

Minister Badi emphasized that this initiative would strengthen intergenerational knowledge transfer by transforming the knowledge and experience gained by one generation into guidance for the next.

The experience bank initiative advanced by the Ministry aims to widen the traditional perspective regarding the senior citizens. The main concept of the experience bank is to utilize senior citizens’ knowledge, skill and life-lessons for the society and next generation along with their social security, health care and protection.

Minister Badi further said senior citizens should be behaved not merely as individuals in need of care and protection, but active, experienced, respected and indispensable partners of the society.

The ministry plans to document the experiences senior citizens have gained in agriculture, entrepreneurship, professions, education, administration, arts and culture, traditional knowledge, social life, and various practical fields, using digital technology, and turn it into a system for passing down to future generations.

The main foundation of the experience bank will be intergenerational knowledge transfer. The aim is to ensure that the knowledge and experience that senior citizens have gained through decades of practice and life journey does not disappear with them, but is preserved and made useful for future generations.

Through the experience bank, the knowledge and skills of senior citizens will be systematically recorded, creating a foundation to connect the new generation with it. The idea is to gradually develop it so that students, youth, and the new generation can freely learn from and get guidance from the knowledge, experience, and life lessons of senior citizens.

It is expected that the experience one generation gains over a long time will guide the next generation and further strengthen the transfer of practical and traditional knowledge in society.

The ministry’s concept aims not only to establish senior citizens as beneficiaries who receive services and facilities from the state, but also to position them as knowledge-givers who share skills, transfer experience, and guide the new generation.

“Real respect to the senior citizens will be established when their experiences are listened to, their knowledge is used respectfully, and an environment for meaningful participation in social and decision-making processes is created,” Minister Badi emphasized.

She stated that with changing family structures, migration, urbanization, and lifestyle, new challenges have emerged in the realm of the health, social security, care, loneliness, and social participation of senior citizens.

Minister Badi asserted that making the lives of the older people safe, dignified, and meaningful is a shared responsibility of family, community, society, and the state. RSS