Scottish Care is to host a special session on the rights of older people at the forthcoming Declaration Fest.

The festival will take place over two days on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd March at Summerhall in Edinburgh as part of an on-going commitment to the right to health and social care in Scotland.

The hour-long session, titled ‘Age is a work of art’, starts at 5pm on Friday 3rd March and will explore through film and discussion all that is beautiful about our ageing society and what we need to do together to ensure that older people are treated with respect, dignity and without discrimination.

Human rights, in their very essence, are universal. However, we all know that certain groups can find it more difficult to claim their rights. In response to this, the United Nations created additional treaties which seek to protect the rights of women, children, disabled people and racial and ethnic minorities. These fundamental agreements strive to keep our society fair, just and equal.

There is no additional treaty for older people. Ageing seems to be viewed as a threat; a health care challenge that cannot be met.  We need to move away from this, to view older people as valuable individuals: as employees, volunteers, carers, parents, grandparents but most importantly- as rights’ holders. Rights’ holders with aspirations, experience, knowledge and potential. As Stanislaw Jerzy Lee said, “Youth is a gift of nature but age is a work of art.”

At Scottish Care we work directly with older people to empower them to claim their rights. We also work with our members who are providing care services to support them to take a human rights based approach which respects, protects and fulfils these rights in practice.