Most of the elderly in Egypt (if not all) are doing one of two things. The first thing is staying at home watching TV, listening to the radio, or sleeping. The other thing some of them (rarely) do is staying with friends playing board games and chatting either in clubs or cafes. This starts directly after pension.
What I saw in my travels was something completely different! The elderly had so many activities to do, these activities are listed below:
1) Tour guides: All tour guides that accompanied me and my colleagues in France and the USA were ranging in age between 65 and 85. This happened in Paris, Washington DC, and New York City. One of them mentioned that she was a veteran in Vietnam war. These people have witnessed most of the changes that happened in the city buildings, roads, and residents. They are almost historians. After pension, they take a professional training to be certified as professional tour guides. It’s great to hear the history and changes that occured to the city from eye witnesses. Training played a very important role in their qualification too.
2) Receptionists in Museums: The first thing to when we enter any museum is heading for the information desk. There, we can take brochures, printouts, schedules of events held in the museum,…and other information. To my astonishment, all those who received us were very old people. Some of them couldn’t even talk or walk (on wheel-chairs). However, they did there jobs efficiently.
When I thought of it, I found that it is very logical. The job of handing out publications or agendas or even showing you where to start your tour does not need more qualifications and energy than what the elderly have. On the conntrary, their position serves many good purposes.
First, as soon as the elderly stay at home after pension, they feel they are useless. They might be already ill, but this feeling is fatal and throws them in the viscious circle of psychological leading to physical illness and backwards.
Second, from an economic point of view, this is the right way of allocation of human resources. Moreover, the opportunity cost is very high when a young person having the will and energy to do 100 jobs does only one or two, especially if these jobs need none of the high qualifications the young person has. The youth need more challenging jobs to do to absorb their energy and enhance their skills. This in turn leads us to the third purpose.
Third, when young persons do a job that is below their qualifications, they feel frustrated and demotivated. They lose their energy, skills, and ability to learn. In short, they rust. This in turn leads to start having time to have destructive rather than constructive thoughts. The human mind is like a box, if not filled with virtues it will be filled with vices.
3) Citizen Diplomats: The first time I heard about citizen diplomacy was in the USA. This gives the opportunity to anyone who loves his country and has some spare time and energy to pay back to his country. This service has more than one form.
One of these is volunteering in accompanying international visitors throughout their visit in a certain city. The tour in each city we visited in the USA was organized by a different entity all under the umbrella of the Department of States. One of these organizers was a retired school teacher who contacted the NGOs and networks that we visited. She also chose the food places that had foods suitable for all tastes and religious groups.
Another way of doing this is entertaining international visitors in their homes for lunch or dinner. This gives international visitors the opportunity to see the American families closely and spend some time with them. This, of course, gives a good impression about the country and its citizens. Most of these hosts are couples on pension. They have spare time and enjoy dealing with people from different countries. They build bridges with international citizens and build networks all over the world.
In Egypt, so many things can be done by the elderly instead of wasting their time and waiting for death to come. They can do any of the above jobs or any other ideas. Some are listed below but many others are in your minds wainting for us to share and spread the word; maybe one day our elderly can enjoy their post-pension life and make use of it:
1) It is noticed that there exists a very intimate relationship between the elderly and young children. We can make use of this relationship by allowing houses of elderly to be close to orphanages or nurseries. This will make the elderly happy playing and talking to the children. They can tell them stories or play with them. This will make them feel that they take care of and keep an eye on the children. This is a type of babysitting but without cleaning and serving them because this is too tiring for most elderly people.
2) The elderly have long and various experiences. They can teach people anything they know. This can be needlework, sewing, cooking, languages, drawing,…and much muach more.
Samaa Hosny 
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