As the country continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, the senior citizens are facing the most threats and challenges, confined to their homes and unable to stay socially connected.

At a higher risk to contract the virus and develop complications from the COVID-19, the elderly people have seen a major change in their daily routine, spending more time at home, lack of physical exercise and lack of contact with family members and friends, resulting in loneliness, anxiety and depression in the past few months.

However, amid all the suffering and anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many good Samaritans have emerged in the time of crisis. Grey Shades, a youth-run, non-profit organization launched by Inderpreet Singh and Wyonna Dsouza, has been providing the much needed succour to the senior citizens through their delivery at doorstep service, tele-counselling and virtual engagement programmes.

“In these unprecedented times, the mandatory safety protocol like social distancing has brought many challenges for elderly population, who are struggling due to loneliness, restricted mobility among other issues. Such concerns made us initiate various programmes to help the elderly living alone in the tricity,” tells Inderpreet Singh (26), who is the co-founder of Grey Shades, which began its journey nearly two years back with a fellowship program for the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of senior citizens.

He tells, “When the nationwide lockdown was imposed in the month of March, we had launched the delivery at doorsteps initiative for the home-alone senior citizens in the tricity. Other initiatives like a centralized helpline (9999712430), tele-counselling and virtual engagement programmes were launched subsequently, to help address the issues of stress and anxiety among the elderly due to COVID-19.”

A team of around 500 youth volunteers were roped in through the network of social media by Grey Shades during the month of March and April for home delivery of items like groceries and medicines to the elderly living alone in the tricity of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali.

Inderpreet shares, “Hundreds of home-alone senior citizens were benefited with the delivery at doorsteps initiative. We used to receive 300 calls a day on our helpline number from the elderly during the initial days of lockdown in March and April.”

The senior citizens constitute 15-17 percent of the total population in the tricity. Among them, many elderly are living alone, he tells.

Through the calls, we realized that many senior citizens in urban and semi-urban areas were concerned about their health and many others were feeling lonely and just wanted to talk to someone, he tells adding that’s how we decided to launch a dedicated centralized helpline for providing tele-counselling, initiate virtual programmes, fellowship programmes queries among others.

At Grey Shades, a team of 12 young counsellors headed by psychologist Natasha Sekhon is helping the senior citizens deal with mental wellbeing amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Notably, elderly are the worst affected among all age groups during the current situation arising due to global pandemic. On the impact of COVID-19 on elderly, HelpAge India, an NGO has stated that the lockdown fanned their fears further, as they faced isolation, uncertainty, and income loss.

“The Elder Story: Ground Reality during Covid-19” report released by HelpAge India has stated that the biggest challenge for the elders during the pandemic has been accessing healthcare, buying medicines, groceries, and banking.

Another nationwide survey by NGO Agewell Foundation had found that a large number of senior citizens were suffering from depression, lack of sleep and appetite and other associated ailments due to COVID-19 triggered restrictions.

A total of 65 percent elderly had complained that due to the lockdown situation they have lost their independence, self-esteem and even dignity to some extent, as they have to depend upon others for their needs. 54 percent respondents said their social life got disturbed due to the lockdown, 75 percent respondents said they miss the healing touch of their doctors as they could not visit them personally, and 59 percent felt psychological loneliness and isolation even while staying with their family members.

Psychologist Natasha Sekhon, who is heading the tele-counselling team at Grey Shades tells, “Most of the senior citizens report loneliness and isolation. The overriding fear of uncertainty about the future and contracting the virus has impacted their mental wellbeing.” We have also received calls from elderly who during the confinement got depressed and were having suicidal tendencies, she shares.

During the tele-counseling, she tells, “Staying in this very moment is the message we give to the callers. We also encourage meditation and mindfulness exercises.”

As many as 450 calls have been received from the elderly from Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and other northern parts of the country for our tele-counselling service during the pandemic, Natasha adds.

Keeping in view the social distancing norm, the Grey Shades is also conducting virtual programmes to engage the senior citizens in different workshops and modules which focus on their emotional, physical, social and spiritual well-being.

The virtual programmes were developed as the Grey Shades Fellowship, a 100- day curriculum halted due to COVID-19. The fellowship programme offers a group of senior citizens explore many aspects about themselves through activities like dance movements, art, yoga, breathing, meditation, nutrition talks for a healthy body and mind, session on growing greens, digital literacy and more importantly sharing their life’s journeys, Inderjeet tells.

The organization of young volunteers  is also gearing up to turn their goodwill into a nationwide service-by launching a mobile app for the senior citizens.

Elaborating, Inderjeet says, “We will soon be launching an app for senior citizens.

 This will be a repository of content and video streaming app which will have sections like health, hobbies, entertainment, legal aid, financial aid among others for the senior citizens.”

Since the elderly are spending far less time socializing and more time in front of screens due to COVID-19, the idea to launch this app is to provide them meaningful and positive content, he adds.