Abuelos en casa

Based on the 2022 Local Diagnosis of Ciudad Bolivar, there are 70782 older adults in the locality, representing 10.9% of the population. Of these, 23.6% live below the poverty line: they do not have decent housing, food or a fixed income. 

Also, according to research on territorial accessibility conducted by Ana Cecilia Cañón of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, 72% of the inhabitants of Ciudad Bolívar spend between 2 and 3 hours traveling from their homes to a health center. This is a consequence of the peripheral location of their residences, the difficult accessibility to paved roads and transportation services, as well as the distances between the area of residence and the medical centers to which they are assigned.

This situation is an aggravating factor for the health and mobility limitations suffered by the elderly. ABC Prodein has 100 elderly beneficiaries in particular who are neglected and suffer from health difficulties typical of their age. Forty percent of them suffer from bone or joint diseases that hinder their mobility, 15% of them have a mobility disability, and 10% have other types of disabilities (visual, hearing or cognitive). 
 
As a consequence, due to the difficulties of access to health centers and the absence of a caregiver to perform cures, therapies and provide medication, this population does not receive treatment for their illnesses with the necessary frequency and thoroughness. This has implications not only on their physical health but also on their psychological and emotional well-being.

Dignify the lives of vulnerable older adults through free services:

• Weekly home visits to beneficiaries of the program in order to perform nursing services, reinforcement of physical therapies, and  cleaning services.
• Daily provision of lunch and spaces for recreation and socialization with peers in the comunitary dining room of the institution.
• Weekly home visits to beneficiaries of the program who cannot make it to the dining room for food delivery and accompaniment.
• Monthly delivery of groceries and personal hygiene supplies to beneficiaries.

Currently, we have provided home care to a total of 100 people, delivered 3100 annual markets and 1400 monthly lunches to this population.

Our solution directly serves the elderly located in the periphery of the Santa Viviana neighborhood of Ciudad Bolivar who live below the poverty line and, therefore, do not have decent housing, adequate food or appropriate care for their stage of life and state of health. Thus, our solution meets their nutritional needs by providing daily food and monthly groceries, their health needs by offering personal hygiene and their environment as well as assistance in terms of cures and therapies and we respond to their psychological needs and social interaction through a continuous accompaniment and the implementation of group recreational activities that reduce the psychomotor deterioration of the beneficiaries.   

ABC Prodein was founded in 1967 by Father Rodrígo Molina and Sister Josefina Serrano. With great sensitivity for the most needy, they promoted the integral development of the human being by offering free, quality education to the most vulnerable population of Cusco, Peru.  In 1970 they began their expansion in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Brazil, United States, Venezuela and in 1994 they arrived in Colombia. 

Upon their arrival, they were located in the Santa Viviana neighborhood of Ciudad Bolivar. There they began with an educational and nutritional offer for the children of the area, which year after year has increased the number of beneficiaries and services offered. Currently, ABC Prodein has branches in Bogotá, Medellín and Cali.

In Bogotá, the food offered to the elderly was expanded, providing them with a daily lunch, a weekly market and recreational activities. We also offer training for job performance and food support to pregnant women in vulnerable conditions.

With all this experience, we have a team of trained personnel with particular sensitivity towards the elderly who have been offering an integral service of attention to the elderly for the last year.  This team has different charismas at the service of our beneficiaries. On the one hand, the coordinators have knowledge in psychology, special care for the elderly, nursing and occupational therapy, in charge of accompanying and assisting the beneficiaries in their health and emotional needs. We also have nutrition-oriented personnel who are in charge of providing balanced daily meals to the beneficiaries. Finally, the team has years of experience in managing groups of different ages, so they have a great ability to perform integration activities for seniors to stimulate their social and motor skills.

We currently serve 100 senior citizens living in the periphery of Ciudad Bolivar locality.

We hope that though solve we will exponentially increase the quality of our service and the number of beneficiaries of the program. Currently we do not have sufficient funding for the purchase of nursing supplies (gloves, gauze, etc.) so we have had to turn to donations and make efficient use of resources. Also, we are short staffed due to the fact that we do not have enough money to hire all the personnel we require to provide optimal care to our beneficiaries.  

For that we want to count on the knowledge and experience of the leader nertwork and peers classes, as well as the financial support to implement the innovational ideas and make this project self-sustainable.

The vulnerable elderly is one of the most underserved and under-served vulnerable populations. This program places the elderly as the articulating axis and seeks to respond to their main need: care. We respond simultaneously to their physical and mental needs through the integration of personalized physical care and group socialization activities. In this way we treat and prevent the evolution of physical and mental illnesses.

• Number of monthly beneficiaries
• Improvement of the physical health status of the beneficiaries 
• Improvement of the mental state of the beneficiaries 
• Number of volunteers involved

Because the main need of our beneficiaries is care and companion, the best solution  we can give them is the precence of people that care about them and are interested in sharing some quality time with them