Last Fri­day, I vis­it­ed the farm of 86-year-old Mike Har­ris with my prayer group. Before we saw him, a 75-year-old gate­keep­er slow­ly got up to greet us, bent by age, but still hap­pi­ly work­ing.

Nat­u­ral­ly, we asked Mr. Haris about him. His reply was qui­et, but unforgettable.

“He was sup­posed to retire 20 years ago,” he said. “But every time we got close, he would ask to stay on. He still had chil­dren in school. He need­ed the salary.”

That moment pierced my heart because it was­n’t just a sto­ry about one man still guard­ing a farm gate at 75; it was the sto­ry of a nation’s qui­et injus­tice. A gen­er­a­tion is work­ing far beyond its strength, not out of choice but out of des­per­ate necessity.

Mr. Haris remains a remark­able excep­tion. At 86, he is still active, cheer­ful, and men­tal­ly sharp. As the founder of Kiji­to Wind­pow­er, he has installed over 700 wind­pumps since the 1980s, bring­ing water and hope to some of East Africa’s dri­est regions. Today, he con­tin­ues to tend and export his avo­ca­dos and chilies, a liv­ing sym­bol that pur­pose can endure. Yet his dig­ni­ty stands out in a nation where most of his peers are qui­et­ly left behind.

Kenya now has more than 2.9 mil­lion peo­ple aged 60 and above, accord­ing to 2024 esti­mates by UNFPA and the Kenya Nation­al Bureau of Sta­tis­tics. That num­ber is expect­ed to dou­ble by 2050. Yet, near­ly 60 per­cent of Kenyans aged 70 and above face pover­ty or food inse­cu­ri­ty. Many eat once a day or rely on dis­tant rel­a­tives, if any. They remem­ber build­ing this nation, but the nation rarely remem­bers them.

We often call the Inua Jamii pro­gram a nation­al safe­ty net for old­er adults. It cur­rent­ly reach­es around 1.2 mil­lion seniors, giv­ing a KSh 2,000 stipend every two months, with plans to grow to 1.75 to 2.5 mil­lion house­holds. How­ev­er, as reports indi­cate, more than a mil­lion peo­ple don’t receive any­thing due to com­pli­cat­ed enroll­ment pro­ce­dures, bio­met­ric mis­takes, and red tape. For those who do get sup­port, it bare­ly meets the full scope of their needs.

Lone­li­ness wors­ens the cri­sis. Accord­ing to WHO, one in three old­er Kenyans suf­fers from chron­ic iso­la­tion. Many are emo­tion­al­ly neglect­ed long before they are laid to rest. Those who once built homes and raised fam­i­lies now face neglect, espe­cial­ly if they have demen­tia or dis­abil­i­ties. Clin­ics rarely pro­vide geri­atric care, and many are mis­di­ag­nosed or dis­missed as burdens.

In coun­tries like Japan, see­ing a 75-year-old still work­ing is com­mon. But here, elders work by choice. They are respect­ed, sup­port­ed, and social­ly includ­ed. In con­trast, in Kenya, most elders who work do so because they have to. There is no pen­sion safe­ty net, no dig­ni­ty in fall­back options. It’s just about survival.

This isn’t the future our Con­sti­tu­tion envi­sioned. Arti­cle 57 guar­an­tees dig­ni­ty and care for the elder­ly, yet these rights still exist only on paper. When a 75-year-old begs to keep his job to sup­port his chil­dren, the sys­tem has failed.Peri­od!

The dam­age is severe, but solu­tions are with­in reach.

First, Inua Jamii should be expand­ed to include all Kenyans aged 60 and above. Dig­ni­ty should not be selec­tive. Sec­ond, all health­care work­ers must be trained in geri­atric care so that the elder­ly are treat­ed with respect, not dis­mis­sive­ness. Third, every coun­ty must estab­lish elder care cen­ters where old­er cit­i­zens can receive food, atten­tion, and com­pan­ion­ship. Fourth, we need to launch nation­al vol­un­teer net­works, start­ing with church­es, schools, and youth groups, to sup­port and accom­pa­ny the elder­ly. And final­ly, we must stop treat­ing elder care as a pri­vate mat­ter; it is a nation­al responsibility.

As we left the Haris farm, the wind­mills turned, steady and worn, like the elders of this land. They built this nation. Now they sit alone. A for­got­ten gen­er­a­tion is not just a cri­sis. It is a moral col­lapse. Think green, act green!