HelpAge International | Our achievements | Who we are

Veronica used a HelpAge loan to set up her own cafe. She now has an income to help feed the children in her care. Frederic Courbet Overall, 1.5 million older people have benefited from our help this year, including 40,000 recovering from the after-effects of disasters.

And by boosting older people's ability to give, lead and nurture, we've triggered wider change across whole families and communities.

Income and health

We've helped 78,000 older people access urgently-needed healthcare and supported more than 300,000 through the challenges of HIV and AIDS.

We've also provided loans and grants to 30,000 to invest in their businesses.

Social pensions remain a huge priority – the key to unlocking older people's ability to live independently and support their communities. We've helped 5 million older people in nine countries claim a new or increased pension.

New policies

To bring about lasting change, we need to get older people's rights embedded in policy and law. For this reason, we're inspiring governments and policy-makers to think actively about the world's ageing population.

We're also supporting grassroots action by older people through our Age Demands Action campaign.

Thanks to our influence, five more countries have drafted or passed national policies on ageing, older people are included in three more national or regional AIDS policies, and older women's rights are being taken up by the UN.

Key achievements

Here are some examples of what we've achieved this year:

• 415,000 older people are now trained to help their communities deal with emergencies.
• 36,000 can see better and lead more independent lives after receiving treatment for eye problems such as cataracts.
• 1,400 older people's groups in 15 countries are monitoring older people's access to national poverty reduction schemes.
• 3 more governments – the Philippines, Kenya and Paraguay – have approved national non-contributory pension schemes.

Read more

• Find out more about how Veronica set up her own small business.
• Download our Annual review (1.2mb) for more on our impact and achievements in 2010.

via helpage.org