Senior Citizen Forum (SCF)    

(An oasis of happiness for Elderly)

Joint family is disintegrating fast. Parents, who are Sr Citizens now, have to fend for themselves. Besides financial aspect, loss of company of children, who have gone elsewhere in search of employment, is the cause of isolation of Sr Citizens in old age. In order to overcome this situation, Day Care centers are opening up at a very fast rate. Here Sr Citizens can assemble during the day, engage themselves in Yoga, indoor games, library interaction and go back to their representive homes in the afternoon / evening duly refreshed.

Sr Citizen Forum Arera colony, Bhopal is such a destination. It is centrally located. It is an extended family of Sr Citizens who help each other in times of need.

Sr. Citizen Forum came in existence in 1991, was registered in the year 1997 and shifted to the present premises in 2002.

Late Shri SC Verma, MP was kind enough to provide funds for construction of the present Bldg out of his benevolent funds, while funds for Boundary wall was donated by Ms Uma Bharti, the then Chief Minister MP.

 Mr. SK Saraswat continued for 21 years and subsequently Gr Capt. AB Mehta took over as President in Feb 2016 but due to ill health could not continue and passed on the batten in May 2016 to Mr. Shanti  Sawarup Saxena, who was retired from LIC

There were challenges. Activities of the Forum were slackened. Some new initiatives were taken to revamp the Forum, to enumerate

  1. Office is kept open from 11 AM to 1 PM on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Office bearers come frequently, President, Treasurer and AO are available invariably.
  2. Yoga is conducted from 8 AM to 9 AM by Mr. AK Ghosh regularly on week days.
  • Physiotherapy is open from 10 AM to 2 PM on concessional rates for members. Dr Deepti Dwivedi, the physiotherapist has 10 years rich experience in this field. It is monitored by Mr. Navneet Sharma.
  • Table tennis, Carrom board, Chess, Play cards, Library and Reading room facilities are open from 11 AM to 2 PM.
  • Badminton will be operational after rains.
  • A unique feature of Forum is providing care giver services to the needy ageing Sr Citizens, who do not have relatives to support Nursing, hospitalization, ambulance, attendant during day and night on payment basis. It is on request basis.
  • Four  events are conducted every month from 4 PM to 6 PM
  • Sangeet and Samvad – 1st Sunday of the month. Members and their spouses perform. There are 40 willing participants. It was anchored and monitored by Shri JK Jain and  Shri AK Pandey. Presently Mr. Sudhir Sharma is monitoring and anchoring it.
  • Health Talk – initiated and monitored by Dr. SK Gour, MD retired Sr Pathologist from Railway.
  • Birth and Marriage anniversary – on last Sunday of the month in respect of those members and their spouses who were born or performed their marriage in that particular month. We apply tilak, garland them and present shriphal and gift. Photographs are taken. Copies given to the participants. It is anchored by Mr. Ashish Sen

During month of Aug 2019 there were two important lectures besides above programmes.

  1. Shri OP Rawat, IAS (Retd) Ex CEC on Election process in India on 10.08.2019
  2. Smt Renu Sharma (hailing from J&K) Distt and Session Judge (Retd) on current situation in J&K.

The affairs of the Forum are managed by a duly elected committee.

Finances are raised through a small membership fee, renewals and donations. Sport activities in 1st half of the day is a source of attraction.  This activity is being arranged and monitored by Mr. Abhay Verma. 30-35 participants come daily. In the second half, Bridge game is arranged by Mr. RRS Chouhan. He arranges matches also. 20-25 Sr Citizens enjoy this game from 2 PM to 6 PM.

Quarterly magazine, “Grey Hair” is being published regularly for 10 yrs by Shri Ghanshyam Saxena.

We are thankful to the Deptt of Social Justice, Govt of MP for financial grant during 2018-19 for setting up of –

  1. Physiotherapy centre
  2. Voluntary Employment Bureau

There is scope for many more activities, as suggested by Mr. RC Mishra a retired officer of Bank of India

  • Experience sharing: life events
  • Life hassles/ problems encountered: solutions seeking
  • Movie day/ evening
  • Outing : local/ vicinity
  • Common lunch/ dinner with entertaining activities
  • Charity events/ participation/ walks/ runs
  • Stage plays: organizing/ participating/ watching
  • Learning musical instruments
  • Village day/ pilgrimage/ forest day
  • Ventilating teaching passions
  • Devotional  programs/ art of living
  • Read book : talk on good/ bad aspects of the book
  • Debates on life issues
  • Daily/ house hold problems/ assistance/ routine made easy: talks/ demo/ literature

Demography – presently, the population of elderly people is 9% of the entire population. Bhopal has a population of 22 lacs, Sr Citizens are about 2 lacs. If we bifurcate it further, roughly speaking 50% of this figure that is 2 lacs, the Sr Citizens of the organized sector may be 1 lac. SCF Bhopal aims at enrolling at least, 1 % i.e.  1000 of organize sector Sr Citizens as our members by end of Mar 2021. Presently our membership is 400, we propose to enroll 250 more member by 31.03.2020 and another group of 350 by 31.03.2021 so as our membership is 1000 as on 31.03.2021.

Directory of the SCF has been published

We are thankful to all the Committee Members, Advertisers, Donors and other members for their cooperation in making SCF a lively organization.