Empowering Our Elders: Womanly x Henry Street Settlement Workshop on Aging and Community Care

Words By Aarti Patel
Photography BY Gene Liaw

A woman in a red shirt and a red headwrap is sitting at a table reading a stack of papers. She's wearing glasses.

The Womanly Team is constantly working to learn more about the needs of our community and to collect feedback that will better inform our programming. Our hope is to build accessible and relevant content that serves the needs of the women and gender non-conforming people. With Issue No. 3: Words from the Wise, Womanly aimed to create an issue that spoke to the needs and aspirations of older generations while bridging the gap between younger generations and making space for all of us to share our stories and experiences.

Recently, with a stack of magazines in hand, I set out to the Henry Street Settlement space in the Lower East Side of NYC to speak with a group of older adults about the issue.

I met with members of the Henry Street Settlement Senior Companion Group, which is comprised of older adults in the NYC area who volunteer to assist homebound seniors living with chronic illnesses. The volunteers offer logistical support with shopping and attending doctors appointments, but most importantly, they provide companionship and emotional support.

An older woman is writing on a piece of paper that says Womanly Magazine next to an illustration of two older women side by side.

This particular afternoon, about 40 seniors graciously volunteered their time to provide feedback on our third issue, through a roundtable discussion and a written survey. After introducing Womanly and the work that I do as the health and wellness educator, we dived into the magazine and I listened intently while they discussed the health and art pieces from the issue that most resonated with them.

While reading the piece on Alzheimer's disease, one senior commented that she didn't know the disease was more common in women than in men. Another senior expressed delight when she read the Seeing Through Their Eyes and Seeing Past Fear: Cataracts pieces. She had recently undergone her own cataract surgery, and she mentioned that cataracts are not a topic typically found in mainstream health magazines. I was struck by the enthusiasm the women had for discussing their health issues, and the desire they had to advocate for their own health. I was moved to hear from a generation who has carried years of wisdom and have nurtured younger generations into the people we are today.

It was inspiring and humbling to see how many people took to this issue so positively, especially when I considered all the long hours the team put into making this issue as an homage to the generation that came before us.