Mawuli Adjabeng - photographer.
““Melting Away” is an ongoing series that seeks to look into the lives of the aged in my country Ghana. Anybody above the age 60 in Ghana is referred to as aged or elderly. The United Nations has however championed celebrations of the 60th birthday as humanity’s greatest achievements though population aging comes with its own sets of challenges.”
THE MELTING AWAY, written by Florence Eudora Addo
Take my hand and lead me to the edge
The very edge of the abyss
Let the wind whip out faces as we catch our breaths
And imagine
Imagine the free fall into nothingness
Be cushioned by shafts of lights as we speed
Mindlessly to the bottom
Take my hand and lead me to the abyss
Let our dreams take flight
As our bodies plummet
Aging is a room of thought one hardly enters to look at what is on the inside. In a generation flooded with the breeze of “forever youngness”, one is likely not to think of aging as an inevitable stage in life.
Some of these challenges being; i) High illiteracy rates, ii) Improper living arrangements, iii) Disability status, iv) Less Economic Activity, v) Little or no ownership of properties amongst others.
In Ghana, the ageing population has decreased from 4% in the year 1984 to 3.5% as at the last national census in the year 2000. Research also brought to light that 229,000 of aged individuals receive cash grants out of the estimated 1.53 million older Ghanaians. This is really a course to worry about hence the need for this project.
