SM Supermalls has extended due recognition and importance to the wisdom and skills of members of the elderly population and started hiring senior citizens who are still capable and keen on being productive citizens even in their twilight years.

Under the SM Cares for Senior Citizens Program, employment opportunities are being offered to senior citizens who are 60 to 70 years old. They will be tapped to be greeters or ushers at the entrances, food courts and cinemas of SM malls.

Hired senior citizens will be assigned on four-hour shifts every Saturdays and Sundays starting at 10 a.m. when the malls usually open.

Techie Gonzales, Human Resource Manager of SM Fairview, said the program aims to help senior citizens by providing them with casual and part-time work assignments.

Gonzales said the program makes full use of the productive skills and abilities of the elderly, enabling them to be of service to mall customers and making them productive members of society.

When it started last year, the program had only a pair of senior citizens in five SM malls.

But the program became successful since many applicants and inquiries came in. All SM malls now employ 10 senior citizens each at any given time.

Gonzales said SM has partnered with the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA) in setting the guidelines of the program and endorsement of the applicants for each batch.

“There is no minimum qualification. For as long as they are within the set age and are physically fit, they may apply,” Gonzales said.

LIVES CHANGED

Ofelia Oliva, 61, of Novaliches, Quezon City, has been a housewife all her life, not being able to find work because she had to take care of her six children.

Now that all her children have their own growing families to take care of, she often feels lonely as most of them have left home.

After being employed at one of the SM Malls, Oliva’s life took a more dynamic twist, as she found a new direction, a new mission and a more meaningful life five months since she was employed.

For the first time, Oliva was made to wear an office uniform and lipstick.

Oliva is part of the third batch of senior citizens hired by SM Supermalls through SM Cares for Senior Citizens Program.

She expressed happiness and pride in her work at SM Fairview, where she is a greeter at one of its entrance halls, because she gets to meet a lot of people who are also glad to see her.

“When people see me at the entrance, some are surprised to see me but are happy because they don’t expect an old woman like me greeting them,” she said.

For Rosario Espino, 63, a former barangay kagawad and a laundrywoman in Batasan, Quezon City, more than the monetary consideration, her employment at SM Fairview as a mall greeter has given her a sense of importance.

“I do not have a permanent job and I never dreamed that at 60 I would land a job, and now I’m employed by SM, I feel honored to have been given this opportunity,” she said in the vernacular.

Quezon City Councilor Victor Ferrer Jr. cited the program as he called on other organizers of job fairs to provide equal opportunities to the elderly and applicants with minimum scholastic achievements.