(Kaieteur News) – Guyanese-American social worker Roy Naipaul, a PhD Candidate has spent years sitting with older clients, listening to how they really feel about growing old.

Over time, he noticed something: Guyanese elders found wellbeing in old age through family closeness and being needed, not through the independence and self-reliance social workers are trained to look for and help develop in their American clients.

This prompted his interest in research which produced the landmark study titled Beyond Independence: Beliefs about Positive Ageing among Indo-Caribbean People in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.