Celebrating the spirit of ageing with cycling

The programme by HelpAge, the Silver Cyclers Project 2019, involves Hari Baskaran, a 70-year old, and a team of enthusiastic cyclists setting off on a 4,000 km voyage, across India to draw attention to critical needs of old age care.

Project Silver Cyclers is a unique cyclothon bringing the spotlight on a long list of age-related problems. The cyclothon covers 4,000 km spanning across the country and it will commence on January 21 in Chennai and culminate on March 19. The proposed route to be covered is Chennai, Bengaluru, Tumkur, Sankeshwar, Satara, Kolhapur, Pune, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Jaipur and Gurugram. Baskaran will be followed by fellow cyclists, including some from military establishments.

The cyclothon is a tribute to caring for the age and aims to mobilise funds from the corporates and from different sections of society. The funds will be directed towards caregivers in the critical task of caring for the elderly. The country is seeing a rapidly ageing population, with an estimated 104 million elderly in the country and the numbers are expected to rise by 2025, Ageing is not an isolated issue and the elderly population are dependents and a large section among them are women. Most of the elders are forced to either live alone or in an old age home.

Edwin Babu, Joint Director, Programme- HelpAge, said that the aim is to show retirement doesn’t mean quitting everything. “Hari himself is from the corporate world and he has a passion for cycling. He will be accompanied by many enroute as they take the message of active and healthy ageing across the seven states that will be covered.”