ONGWEDIVA: Deputy Secretary of the Swapo-Party Women’s Council, Eunice Iipinge, says the entire membership of the party needs to strengthen its efforts to take care and protect the country’s elderly people against the tendency of elderly abuse.

Iipinge said this whilst delivering her council’s solidarity message at the three-day fifth Congress of the Swapo-Party Elders’ Council which commenced at Ongwediva here on Thursday.

At the same time, Iipinge expressed satisfactory that the constitution of the Swapo-Party Elders’ Council has made provision for the campaign for the creation of sufficient sanatoriums and boarding homes for elderly people in the country.

Hard work and dedication, she said, are needed to ensure that elderly people have access to adequate health care, food security, water, electricity and other public service.

“The experience so far calls for the implementation of this provision,” Iipinge noted, adding that the country is also experiencing an increase of gender based violence which needs national unity to curb it.

According to Iipinge, the Swapo-Party and the Namibian society have witnessed the elements of disunity.

“Therefore, comrades we need to double our efforts to unite our people for betterment of our party and the nation at large,” Iipinge appealed.

She used the same platform to encourage her comrades to work together to ensure that there will be 50/50 percent representation of women and men in the decision-making body.

Secretary of the Swapo-Party Youth League (SPYL), Elijah Ngurare, also sent the SPYL solidarity message presented by Andreas Amundjindi, the councilor of the Oshana Region’s Uukwiyuushona Constituency.

In his solidarity message, Ngurare described the elders as the backbone of the Swapo-Party and the vanguards of the Namibian Revolution.

The congress is scheduled to elect new leaders of the Swapo-Party Elders’ Council during its last session on Saturday.