Pema Tso (deputy of the National People’s Congress and senior research fellow with the Institute of Ethnic Studies at the Xizang Academy of Social Sciences) 

In 2016, as an anthropological scholar, I spent three months in the northern nomadic area of the Xizang Autonomous Region, particularly at a designated service center, studying how to improve the situation of the poverty-stricken population there. My focus was on the elderly and the service model offered them. The county-level service center is equipped with all types of amenities, furniture, and daily necessities. Seniors would only bring their most basic possessions with them, and the rest was taken care of. They had access to a full food court to accommodate their varying tastes. There was even a place for those with the weakest physical capabilities to drop off their laundry. The center had full-time staff to help with daily affairs, and there were even doctors who were stationed there whose sole patients were residents. 

Today, counties all across Xizang have successfully established at-home or center-based services for the elderly. These targeted programs have solid financial backing and high-quality standards, both of which continue to improve matters with each passing day. Still, things are far from complete. 

One area that continues to lack is individualized care. More should be done to help seniors at the personal level, such as with their mental or spiritual health. Program preparation should also be done through additional consultation with anthropologists, sociologists, and historians, whose field studies can help draft new strategies to be weighed by top decision-makers and even direct the policy implementation process. I also brought up how community-oriented senior service centers in Xizang should motivate NGOs to step up to the plate by them potentially even establishing their own facilities in the area.