Most of us will require support to care for ourselves at some point in our lives, whether temporarily or permanently. This is a fundamental reality that lies at the core of healthy ageing: needing care should not be a barrier to being able to continue living with meaning, dignity, and rights. Changing the way we as individuals, communities, and societies care for others is therefore crucial to truly transform the world to be a better place to grow older.
In Mexico, Bárbara Diego has been one of the leaders in reconfiguring care. With a long educational and professional background in psychogerontology, Bárbara Diego has been developing care-providing projects that take into account the diversity of later life for more than 12 years. Foremost among these is Gericare, a pioneering social enterprise established in 2010 that utilises its own mode of care called ‘Vida a los años’ (‘Life to the years’ in English) with three pillars: (1) home care that corresponds to a personalised care plan developed specially for each person; (2) a day club that keeps older people physically, mentally, and socially active in both physical and online modalities; and (3) the RedGericare, a network which provides free educational and support services for the community in relation to ageing and care through counselling, support groups, conferences, campaigns and workshops.
Bárbara Diego’s innovation also lies, however, in leveraging Gericare as a space to pilot new approaches and develop a seedbed of talented people towards accelerating the provision of effective, human-centred care in Mexico. As a result, Bárbara Diego has been able to implement new and exciting models of care such as through musical activity and community building with the older person’s rock choir Vintage People, and Silverclub, a hybrid-format prevention and wellness community for older people developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.