Change starts here.
Change starts here.
On a bitter snowy day in 2008, Mariam Larson was busy buying food in New Westminster’s Royal City Centre.
She noticed a well-dressed older lady lying on one of the mall benches, her walker nearby.
Concerned, Mariam approached to see if she was OK. She learned the lady had had eye surgery a few days earlier, and lived alone. She knew it was dangerous to be out on the slippery hilly streets, and was resting from her exertions.
She said to Mariam: “It was scary, but I just had to get out.”
Her conversation with the woman set Mariam thinking about the challenges facing other seniors and those dependent on wheelchairs, scooters, walkers and other mobility aids to get around their neighbourhoods.
A short time later, a grant opportunity crossed her desk as coordinator of the New Westminster Senior Services Task Force (SSTF), also known as the New Westminster seniors planning table.
The task force and the City of New Westminster got together and this spring received funding from the Built Environment and Active Transportation (BEAT) Program.
Using the grant money, the Wheelability Assessment Project kicked into high gear in the summer of 2009. The city is now preparing maps to identify easy, moderate and difficult routes for those with mobility problems in uptown and downtown New Westminster.
Mariam, an energetic and articulate gerontologist, says that an exceptionally high number of seniors live in uptown New Westminster, a hilly area between Sixth and Eighth Street and north of downtown New Westminster. According to Statistics Canada, 24 per cent or 1,855 of the 7,650 population in Uptown were aged 65 or over in 2006.
Her position as planning table coordinator is funded by United Way of the Lower Mainland. United Way supports seven seniors’ planning tables, covering New Westminster, Burnaby, Delta, Surrey, South Surrey/White Rock, North Vancouver and Maple Ridge. Mariam is coordinator for both the New Westminster and Burnaby planning tables.
As she talks, Mariam’s passion for her work is easy to see. So what motivates her?
“I need to keep learning and working with good people to be happy,” she says.
The first seeds of working with older people were planted when she was just 19. She was working, going to school, and looking after frail grandparents. More recently, her husband’s family navigated her father-in-law’s long decline due to strokes, dementia and kidney failure.
This experience helped her recognize the importance of family communication in later life. She was inspired to go back to school and earned a post-baccalaureate diploma in gerontology from Simon Fraser University. She focused on developing ways to help people manage the impact of aging both at home and in the workplace.
“The biggest thing I get is a sense of perspective. These older people -- I don’t hear a lot of regrets,” she adds.
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