08.09.2023
Ashford Place Dementia Café reopened at 2pm on Tuesday August 29th after a two week summer break. Over 30 members and their carers attended the session, and they gave a very warm Ashford Place welcome to a group of seven visitors from Gunpo City Health Centre in South Korea. Eun-ji Lee, a public official and nurse working at a Dementia Café in South Korea had requested a visit to Ashford Place DeCafe as she was eager to experience how a successful Dementia Café works and she hopes to benchmark the positives from her visit to improve the services she can offer at the Gunpo Clinic and Health centre.
Eun-ji, who attended with five colleagues and an interpreter joined the group for lunch and spoke with Caty on the role of a volunteer at the DeCafe and with Bernard a regular member of the group who told them of his love of music and dancing. Michele, the DeCafe Leader spoke to the visitors on how the DeCafe focuses on the importance of everyone having a fun time participating in singing, dancing and socialising and making new friends coupled with art, math and language tasks and gentle exercises to maintain physical and mental wellbeing. She also emphasised the importance of keeping the members up to date on health checks and how the DeCafe participated in last year’s Keep Well project and how this year the DeCafe members will be part of The Great Green Pledge. Before leaving the visitors led the group in a fun and lively traditional Korean song and dance.
Eun-ji expressed her gratitude to Ashford Place for facilitating the visit and spoke of her appreciation for the welcome and advice she and her team received.
Ashford Place Dementia café meets in the Mezzanine every Tuesday from 2 – 4pm. For further information contact Tel 0208 208 8590 or email Michele at [email protected] .
Sympathy
Everyone at Ashford Place Dementia Café sends their deepest sympathy to member Manek on the sudden death of his brother Hoshang on 30th August. Hoshang (RIP) will be remembered with joy and affection.