|
 Who
is Ambassador Alvarez?
Born in 1926 in the Dominican Republic,
Julia Alvarez has spent much of her life in the United States.
In addition to raising four daughters, she helped manage her
physician husband’s medical clinic located in the heart
of a Spanish speaking community in Brooklyn.
In 1978 her brother, then-Foreign Affairs
Minister of the Dominican Republic, was having difficulty finding
bilingual staff for his country’s mission to the United
Nations. He asked Julia to help. Her one day a week at her Mission
in New York soon became five days a week, which eventually led
to her being named an Ambassador and Alternate Permanent Representative
of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations.
This has proven to be a fortunate turn
of events for the world’s older people.
Largely self taught in the matters of diplomacy, Ambassador Alvarez
takes modest pride in placing on the United Nations Agenda first
an annual Day for Older Persons - October 1, and second, the
International Year for Older Persons we celebrated in 1999. “It
took more than a year and a day to get the job done. It is hard
to turn ideas into action,” she says.
Evidence of this is the fact that it took
15 years of perseverance and hard work to get a Day for Older
Persons. The International Year came by resolution, which Ambassador
Alvarez was able to achieve during the celebration of the Tenth
Anniversary of the adoption of the U.N. Plan of Action on Ageing
in 1992.
Why 1999 and why October 1 you may ask.
She chose October 1 because there was no special event in October,
no Mother’s Day or special holiday. And why 1999? “Well,
it is because it is the end of the century,” she says.
Ambassador Alvarez feels that aging is
not a tragedy, and that Older Persons must be looked at as a
resource, not just as a burden. On intergenerational
matters she reminds us that “We are all interdependent;
we need to rebuild the solidarity with other generations. That
is crucial.”
She sees Older Persons as potentially wonderful
role models in bringing about a peaceful world.
"Increased longevity is producing
something new under the sun: an alteration
in the basic character of this planet’s human population.
The challenges and opportunities presented by this unprecedented
and uncharted demographic era of human history are only now beginning
to take shape. We live in the age of aging. But it’s only
the dawn of that age."
"Older people must be allowed and
encouraged to see themselves as actors in the drama of their
own lives and in the functioning of society, not just as people
who are passive and needy. All of us must become aware that ability,
not chronology, is the measure of how much people can contribute
to society."
"The media have an important role
to play in educating everyone about what older people are really
like. The borders of the TV screen frame not only the image being
broadcast, but also the edges of our consciousness. Older people
are not a burden, but old misconceptions about them are. Accurate
reporting about older citizens as real people - full, complicated,
human beings, rather than just colorful, quaint characters -
can go far toward expanding our consciousness, dismantling antiquated
notions about aging."
This article is based on an
interview with
Ambassador Julia T. Alvarez, conducted in New
York October 26, by Francine Lamontagne,
Programs Manager, International Activities, AARP.
Copyright AARP, International
Activities |
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