We are proud to announce the launch of the CREATIVE CARE COUNCIL! LEARN MORE
We are proud to announce the launch of the CREATIVE CARE COUNCIL! LEARN MORE
New York, NY — Caring Across Generations is proud to announce that co-director Sarita Gupta has been named as one of Next Avenue’s 2016 Influencers of Aging. The annual award from Next Avenue, public media’s first and only digital publication dedicated to covering issues for people 50 and older, recognizes advocates, researchers, thought leaders, innovators, writers and experts at the forefront of changing how we age and think about aging. She joins Caring Across Generations Co-Director Ai-jen Poo, selected as an Influencer of Aging in 2015, in sharing this honor.
Ms. Gupta, also Executive Director of Jobs With Justice, has been an advocate working to improve the economic, labor and political issues affecting working people, particularly women and people employed in low-wage sectors such as home care, for more than 18 years. “I am deeply honored to be recognized by Next Avenue among this field of strong leaders and the crucial work they do around caregiving and aging,” she said.
In 2011, she helped launch Caring Across Generations, a national movement anchored by Jobs with Justice in coalition with more than 100 other organizations, bringing together families, professional caregivers, people with disabilities, and aging Americans working to transform the way we care in this country. She was instrumental in Caring Across’s efforts with others to persuade the U.S. Labor Department to extend wage and overtime protections to home care workers. Challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court by the home care industry, the effort finally came into historic effect in October 2015.
Sarita grapples with the same care issues facing more and more Americans, balancing caring for young children with caring for aging parents. As a member of the “sandwich generation,” building a movement reflecting the full diversity of the nearly 100 million Americans directly impacted by the need for long-term care, and working to increase every family’s access to quality, affordable care while creating millions of quality home care jobs in the process, is personal.
“As a caregiver to my father with Alzheimer’s, I’d like caregiving to be easier and more sustainable for families like mine. And as a professional care advocate, I speak for policies that support family and professional care workers, like paid family leave and fair wages for paid caregivers,” she said. “It is time to bring caregiving into the 21st century, where care and those who provide it are fundamentally valued, once and for all.”