Page 17 - HOH

a11
local Monday 22 august 2022
Club Kibrahacha 60+:
“Despite of a lot of challenges, we were able to continue

providing service and activities to our clients”

ORANJESTAD – Club Kibrahacha the year. Recently we just closed worth noting that a lot of men love costs – as well as a member’s con-
60+ is a centre that offers vari- an agreement with Club Roy 50+, practicing music, where before tribution. Rotary also provides help,
ous activities and services to the where our clients can go there to there was a limitation for men to and finally, fundraising. All these
dynamic 60+ group, so that they do their physical activities on their partake in social activities for one incomes were affected during the
can work together on a long and gym machines”, Mr. Matos ex- reason or another, mostly they pandemic, and they had to try to
healthy life. During a visit by our plained. This is the kind of coopera- play domino but very few you find spend less, adapt, and carry one.
reporter, the club explained that tion that the organization of Club at other events, according to Mr. It will take around three years to
despite having confronted a lot Kibrahacha 60+ believes in, and Matos. So this is a very positive sign, reach the pre-pandemic level
of challenges after the pandemic, that they want to keep promoting to start seeing more participation once again, according to Mr. Ma-
they still managed to continue pro- also because it is very important. through e various types of differ- tos, but a lot of things had to be
viding their services and continue ent activities that they are now ex- postponed, like maintenance, and
with the activities they arrange for This foundation has 37 years of ex- ecuting. some cuts also had to be made.
their clients. istence, and if one looks at the last But despite it all, they managed to
census 2020, according to Mr. Ma- When our reporter entered the keep afloat.
Jeffrey Matos, director of Club tos, it shows indication of around property to do the interview, right
Kibrahacha, explained that since 23,000 persons 60+ currently on away they noticed that a lot of at-
last year they are active again. Aruba. It is a large percentage in tention is being paid to the place,
They were active during the Co- our society. “There you realized the ambience is calm and tranquil. Matos concludes: “You cannot
vid period, but now in 2022 they that the role of our foundation is During an interview with Kelsey Ar- adapt the contribution by increas-
started being more open and flex- becoming more and more impor- ends, policy officer at Club Kibra- ing the price, somewhere you
ible with rules. “This brought growth tant in our community, and the hacha, there was a group of clients need to create the income. Mean-
back in the quality of the member- concept of what we’re doing – like playing domino who looked really ing what we did – is not the way
ship who come here, you can no- providing transport to bring people happy. Kelsey is a young person going forward, however – but we
tice that a lot more people began from different neighborhoods and doing a lot of good work recently reduced spending. This are just
coming this year”, Mr. Matos com- try to bring them out of loneliness. at Club Kibrahacha, learning a lot, challenges that you find, like any
mented. This in turn makes the en- It is a stable organization, and you and adding her own knowledge organization, and I think we dealt
thusiasm of our older persons also can see that there is a need for in order to better the service pro- with it in a positive way. We are
go up, after a time that was very what we’re offering.” vided to the customers. A young not going to knock on the govern-
confusing and a little bit scary dur- person with a lot of potential. ment’s door, or say we are stop-
ing the pandemic. Now that there is more flexibility to ping operations. I think we have a
do activities, it can be noted that Currently there are around 200 ac- very humble team here. It’s more
Now they started back with their people are more enthusiastic, and tive members. The pandemic did about the passion with which you
events, meetings and parties, nat- they even got several new mem- affect the financial situation of work, for whom you are working.
urally taking into account every- bers. Recently before the summer the foundation quite heavily, ac- This was our focus, we did not focus
thing regarding the safety of each they organized a cuarta concert cording to Mr. Matos. They have on if there was money or not, we
person. “It’s going well. We’ve that went really well, at the club four streams of income, which are just carried on working. We went
done various health workshops, cu- itself, with great enthusiasm and a government subsidy – around through it, and I think as a founda-
arta lessons, we expanded during which brought a lot of cheer. It’s 40 percent of subsidy for all their tion, we can carry on.”