01.09.2023
September is Alzheimer's Awareness Month. We will be celebrating to raise awareness about Dementia, and empower people living with Dementia and their loved ones; to encourage their independence and maintain their lifestyles doing things that they love. Dementia can be a scary word, but by raising more awareness we can continue to combat this narrative by showing you it’s not a dull and dreary place. As our good friend Ronald Amanze said “there are a lot of new beautiful experiences that can come from diagnosis”. Alzheimer's Awareness Month at Ashford Place will be filled with fun, laughter, creativity, hope, conversations with friends about how we can support one another, and lots of tea and cake.
We will be kicking off on Tuesday 5th September, with the launch of our Pop Up Friendship Shop, in the Wellbeing Space.
The Friendship Shop is a peer support initiative and will be open from 10.30am – 1pm daily throughout the month of September, for anyone affected by memory issues. You can pop in, have a cup of tea and a chat about things you or your loved ones may be experiencing. This is a happy, safe space, offering hope and guidance.
We will also be starting The Happiness Tree project. This whimsical tree will be in the Pop-up Friendship Shop for you to write and decorate messages of hope and support to others who may be affected by memory issues, or are at a different stage in their memory journey. You can hang your message on The Happiness Tree, so that when others are going through a difficult patch they can come and sit by the tree for some Happy vibes! This project will run throughout September for you to add to this magical tree ~ or even take some Happiness from it!
We will also be hosting art workshops throughout September for those affected by memory issues, held in the pop-up Friendship Shop. Please see the calendar below for dates and times. All workshops need to be pre-booked, via Rabia, and are limited to 5 people per workshop on a first come first serve basis. Workshops are £3, including materials and Rabia’s Happiness elixir tea! For more information, or to book a place onto a workshop please contact Rabia on 07757 726799 or [email protected].
Painting Your Adventures - This is a therapeutic watercolour painting workshop. Using your memory and imagination we will paint sunsets or sunrises, that you’d love to watch, or remember watching! The paintings can be as realistic, or as unique and imaginative as you want.
Memory Scrapbooking – In this workshop we will be creating imaginative and colourful collages of a time in your life that you cherish and want to remember forever. We will be using materials like autumn leaves, fabric cuttings, lavender, tissue paper, sequins, newspaper and string, for a sensory experience. You can also bring your own materials that you wish to incorporate in your piece of work, for example pictures, magazine cuttings, leaves or flowers that you may have picked up on a walk.
Little Joys in Life – In this workshop we will be decorating photo frames, for your photos. We ask that you bring with you a photograph you love, to decorate a photo frame for it, so you can protect and cherish this picture forever. This photograph can be of yourself during a special time, or of your family, friends or pets. You can take this photo frame away with you and put it in a special place as a reminder of the little joys in your life.