while urging unity to protect the most vulnerable at a recent event in South San Francisco.
Gen-Zs joined Millennials, Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers among 150 people who heard the exhortation and gained a new
perspective on aging at the 14th annual “Our Family, Our Future” community education and resource fair presented by ALLICE Alliance for Community Empowerment June 17 in South San Francisco.
Traditionally shining the light on elder care and abuse prevention in the fi rst of their two annual education events, the allvolunteer nonprofi t highlighted the pressing issue of AAPI hate in their 20th year of community education and advocacy.
Robredo in a video address noted that “many older Filipino Americans are pictures of vitality and productivity” but that there have been “waves of hate crimes and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacifi c Islanders, including our beloved elders.”
The lawyer and mother to three reiterated how caring for elders is “sacred duty” to Filipinos. “As they strove nurture and provide for us in our younger years, it is our shared responsibility as one community to ensure they are given care, attention and love,” said the founder Angat Pinas, the national volunteer movement to empower the underprivileged in her country.
“Ensuring they are protected from abuse is a collective mission and it all starts with awareness,” she proceeded to amplify her organization’s solidarity with ALLICE’s “important” mission.
“By volunteering to educate the public…introduce this fi rst sure step toward ensuring a more empowered, more caring and more engaged society, one that embraces each and everyone.” (See full remarks in Commentary.)
Longtime ALLICE ally San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa hailed the team as a “true treasure” for steadfast promotion of wellness and safety while rejecting abuse on every level. He also lauded the County Aging & Adult Services and the Commission on Aging for implementing “bold goals” in line with the California Master Plan for Aging to preserve older adults‘ autonomy by “aging in place” or having the power to choose where to live from various options with access to services to optimize their quality of life.
UNITED “UPSTANDERS” ALLICE clinical director Dr. Jei Africa, Director of San Mateo County Behavioral Health &
Recovery Services off ered the “chilling” statistic that “90% of reported abuse involves a family member or caregiver,” per the County Adult Protection Services.
Since the pandemic, however, strangers began attacking Asians as some politicians blamed the population for the spread of the coronavirus, said Africa. Older Asians became common targets, some fatal, such as the senseless beating of a resident in San Francisco and another in Oakland, California.
Africa emphasized the latest toll of 11,000 anti-Asian hate incidents reported to the national advocacy group Stop AAPI Crime before his impassioned presentation of the latter’s fi ve safety tips each for those experiencing and witnessing hate attacks. (See companion PSA in this issue.) “We cannot stand by and do nothing,” stressed Africa, “Let’s be upstanders, not bystanders.”
9 ACTS OF KINDNESS On the other hand, empowering older adults takes very little, according to Peninsula Family Service (PFS) Filipino peer counseling coordinator Tessie Madrinan, who shared lessons from her 15 years as a volunteer then staff member of the San Mateo-based agency serving three counties.
“Kindness does not cost a penny, but its outcome is priceless,” said the facilitator of Kapihan, a PFS weekly social group at Lincoln Community Center in Daly City. She cited “respect, active listening, smiling, ncouragement, sharing, open-mindedness, empathy, celebration of every success, and patience” as key to interacting sensitively with older adults and affi rming their sense of self-worth.
Madrinan’s program provides training for people 55 and older to become peer counselors matched with clients requesting one-on-one calls or visits to free them from isolation and loneliness or simply to have a pleasant conversation. (For PFS Older Adults programs such as transportation and technology, visit www.pfso.org.)
Robredo