International Day of Older Persons 2025

Celebrating the Older Persons: Promote Dignity, Well‑Being, and Active Participation Through Our Charism of Hospitality and Core Values

Each year, on October 1st, the world honours the International Day of Older Persons. In 2025, the United Nations has chosen the theme: “Older Persons Driving Local and Global Action: Our Aspirations, Our Well-Being and Our Rights”.

This theme shifts the perspective: older persons are not merely recipients of care. They are leaders, advocates and participants, actively shaping communities and inspiring global change. Their voices, aspirations and well-being must be protected and celebrated.

Our charism of Hospitality: walking with older persons

At Sisters Hospitallers, our mission is rooted in the charism of Hospitality: to welcome, accompany and serve each person with compassion, respect and dignity. For us, caring for older persons is not just a service, it is a vocation of love.

Hospitality means:

Listening to aspirations: encouraging older persons to share their stories, dreams and wisdom.

Promoting well-being: offering holistic care; physical, emotional, social and spiritual.

Defending rights: ensuring every older person is respected, included and valued.

Our values in action in our centres

The core value that animates us is Hospitality. From this foundation flow our guiding values, which are reflected in how we walk with older persons:

• Sensitivity for the excluded: we reach out to older persons who are isolated, vulnerable, or overlooked, ensuring their voices are heard and their dignity upheld.
• Service to the sick and needy: our care responds concretely to the needs of those who suffer, especially those with illness or disability in later life.
• Liberating welcome: we empower older persons to live with freedom and autonomy, making choices about their own lives and remaining active participants in society.
• Holistic health: we care for the whole person — body, mind, spirit and relationships — promoting true well-being in all its dimensions.
• Professional quality: our centres combine compassionate presence with skilled healthcare, ensuring older persons receive the best standards of service.
• Humanity in care: every gesture matters — kindness, respect and warmth transform our centres into places of belonging, not institutions.
• Ethical intervention: we defend the rights of older persons to privacy, informed choice, fairness and non-discrimination.
• Historical awareness: we honour the life stories and experiences of older persons, valuing the wisdom of their past as a gift for the present and future.

These values are lived every day in our residential homes, day centres and outreach services across the world.

Older persons enrich our world with their wisdom, resilience and presence. Far from being a burden, they are a gift and a driving force for change.

As Sisters Hospitallers, we are honoured to walk alongside them, guided by our charism of Hospitality and our values. Together, we can build a more humane society where ageing is celebrated, rights are defended, and aspirations continue to grow.