By Orlando Pulido (Freelance Writer)
SAN IGNACIO TOWN, Cayo District, Thurs. Sept. 4, 2025
This Wednesday, the Octavia Waight Center in San Ignacio served as the venue for a pivotal series of legislative consultation sessions organized by the National Council on Ageing in collaboration with HelpAge Belize. The sessions center on the redrafted Families Bill—a transformative piece of legislation that seeks to unify and modernize Belize’s legal framework surrounding family life and elder care.
The Families Bill represents a significant legal milestone, which, for the first time, introduces dedicated provisions for the welfare and protection of older persons. This integration signals a progressive shift in Belize’s legislative priorities, recognizing the needs of families and the growing importance of safeguarding the rights of aging citizens.
The consultations are designed to be inclusive and participatory, ensuring that older persons across Belize have a direct voice in shaping the legislation that affects their lives. Stakeholders, caregivers from the Octavia Waight Center, community leaders, and older adults themselves were present on Wednesday to contribute their perspectives.
“I believe from ever since I have been an advocate that the same way a parent is responsible for the children, also the grown-up children should be responsible for their elders. Too many people are abandoned. They cry, and they don’t see their loved ones; and until they die, then everybody appears …,” said Mr. Hector David Silva, a retired politician.
HelpAge Belize, a longstanding advocate for the rights of older adults, views the revised Families Bill as a critical opportunity to embed a rights-based approach to aging within national policy. By gathering insights, concerns, and recommendations from those most affected, the organization hopes to ensure that the final draft reflects the lived realities of older Belizeans and promotes social inclusion, safety, and access to essential services.
“In this bill, what I want to see is that those conventions, those international obligations that the Government had signed to, be implemented in the bill; and specifically, the Inter American Convention on the Rights of Older Persons needs to be implemented in the bill. Those rights focus on the quality of life for older persons,” commented Ivorine Bulwer, Executive Director of HelpAge Belize
As Belize continues to navigate demographic shifts and evolving family structures through time, these consultations mark a crucial step toward a more inclusive and compassionate legal framework—one that honors the contributions of older persons and affirms their place in the heart of Belizean society.
Ms. Ix-Chel Poot, Executive Director of the National Council on Aging, emphasized the history behind these efforts: “When Belize made its first bold move in 2002, when Cabinet adopted the Belize National Policy for Older Persons, that policy outlines nine key areas that government should be looking at in the development of our population towards aging. It also identifies an older person as anybody sixty plus. Following the inception of the policy for older persons, the National Council on Aging was established as an umbrella organization,” she explained.
Members of the public responded positively to Wednesday’s consultations, which focused on Part Four of the Families Bill, 2025. According to Ivorine Bulwer, there are now 49,000 older persons in Belize, and they are beginning to take heed.
