Author: Isobel Wise

While we support those living with dementia and their carers every day, #WorldAlzheimersDay is an opportunity to raise awareness, share stories, and further support those affected by the disease on a global scale.

Our CEO, Isobel Jones, has written a piece to commemorate the campaign:

Dementia, as we know, is on the increase; 1 in 2 of us are affected by it. Dementia is a condition that unfortunately isn’t curable. It is misunderstood, perceived to be an older person’s condition and is often just associated with memory loss.

But dementia is not something we should accept as old age. It is not something that can continue to be ignored and swept under the carpet. The more we talk about it, the more we can support people to live as well as possible. So much is being done to make our society more dementia friendly, but it’s time we make dementia a priority.

At Alive, we are passionate about lighting up later life. We want to bring joy to those who are living with dementia. And we do.

Take Betty, for example. She is a regular at our allotment. She’s been coming since the beginning. She lights up when she opens the gate, and begins to water. It’s her job and her purpose. She is now living in a care home, but she still comes every week. Our sessions are her constant and her joyful moments of the week.

Take John, for example. He is a regular at our Dementia Meeting Centre. He lives alone and felt isolated and lonely. His social circle had dwindled since his diagnosis. But here he finds support, camaraderie and friendship with other men living with dementia. They play skittles, pool, laugh about the things they can’t do and congratulate each other on their achievements. They often joke that it’s like they are down the pub for 5 hours every week. 

They are living well together. But we need to create more opportunities like this.

We need to understand dementia, and break down stigmas and misunderstandings. At a meeting this week with a corporate partner, I was thanked by a member of staff who said we had completely changed the way she saw dementia. “I thought it was just old people who forgot things. Now I understand, I realise it’s so much more than that and I need to change my approach.”

We all need to change our thinking and support those who are living with dementia to lead lives as full as possible. It’s time to act on dementia, it’s time to act on Alzheimer’s.

This week marks one year of our gardening group at the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

Celebrating with a cake covered in forget-me-nots, the amazing BRI Dementia, Delirium and Falls team also filled the garden with bunting and banners as we commemorated the occasion with party food and flower arranging with blooms grown at our North Bristol Dementia-Friendly Allotment.

Visited by over 30 hospital staff members who came to congratulate us, it was a wonderful way to celebrate what has been such a impactful project supporting patients at the hospital.

Huge congratulations to Abi and her team, plus our incredible group of volunteers. Here’s to our second year at the BRI and new sessions at Weston Hospital soon too!

Awarded an honorary doctorate from University of Bristol this month for her contributions towards racial equality and social justice, we’d like to wish Barbara Dettering a huge congratulations.

As a pioneering civil rights campaigner for over six decades, playing a pivotal role in the Bristol Bus Boycott and co-founding St Paul’s Carnival, Barbara is also an attendee and secretary of the Malcolm X Elders group we support.

It’s so brilliant to see her important work recognised.

Read more here.

Support Alive and enter our fantastic raffle to be in with a chance of winning a week’s holiday for four in the South of France. Each ticket costs £10 and is a 100% donation to the charity. You have to be in it, to win it! 

The lucky prize winner will enjoy a week’s holiday for four at ‘La bastide de Magdeline’ in Provence, giving you the chance to really explore the French countryside, nearby towns and even the beaches.  

See here for full details and T&Cs.
Draw closes 18th October 2024 at 4pm.

It’s great to see The Hoppiness Project hit the headlines! Giving care home residents the chance to brew their own beer, our Project Manager, Guy, and Dr Karen Gray sat down with BBC News to talk about our collaborative endeavour to empower older people and those living with dementia.

Read the article in full here.

Find out more about the project here.

Back in August 2023, we welcomed Kat Lyons, the current Bristol City Poet, to our Brentry Allotment. They joined one of our regular Tuesday sessions, meeting some of our wonderful participants and seeing some of the work we do there.

Kat wrote a poem about their experience, which can be read below.

It’s a beautifully evocative poem grounded in people, place and plants, capturing the intersection of memory, ageing, and the joy of gardening.

It’s rich in sensory detail and has a poignancy that is especially moving, spanning the bittersweetness of memory and the moments of tenderness and warmth our sessions are full of.

Recollected Moments in a Brentry Allotment

A wheelchair-friendly path; a shed; a space reclaimed
among dementia’s bindweed.

A bouquet of gardening gloves; each week she chooses
her favourite colour, periwinkle blue.

The smell of her first garden; a yellow tomato
plucked from the tangled growth of years.

Fingers planted in the soil; his hands unsteady now but quick
to part the leaves and find the early raspberries.

A dahlia like a ripe peach; her face lost
in sunset petals; a bright-eyed prayer of thanks.

Mouths folding into smiles; a nonsense song in Welsh, a poem
to wake the words laid sleeping on the tongue.

A great lion of a sunflower; a shaggy head
that nods a greeting, bows beneath the encroaching clouds.

While the sun has been a bit shy, the forecast for our community gardens is nothing but bright with the busy summer season underway. From events, to new faces and community sessions, catch up on all the news from our various green-fingered projects around the city.

Get Growing Trail 2024

Opening the gates to our North Bristol Dementia-Friendly allotment this June, it was a pleasure to take part in this year’s #GetGrowingTrail organised by Bristol Food Network.

North Bristol Dementia-friendly Allotment

With the cooler weather and the relentless attacks from slugs, everything is a bit behind at our Brentry allotment this season. However, with warmer weather heading our way, we’re looking forward to things picking up soon – and with a hearty harvest of broad beans and chard this year it certainly feels like we’re heading in the right direction!

Wellspring Settlement Community Garden

Since last we wrote, we have started working with a new social prescriber from Wellspring Settlement, which has been lovely. We have also been working hard on our vegetable beds, primping our flower beds, sorting out the roundabout planting and watching tadpoles in our pond. We will soon plant native hedgerows and wildflowers in local green spaces and will be helping the Family Centre with their garden.

BRI Sessions

We’ve had a few sessions outside in the hospital’s courtyard garden as the weather has begun warming up, and we have received the fantastic news that the hospital charity has given us funding for another year of sessions! We have continued beautifying the garden and supporting family and friends in gardening with the patients and nurses. Feedback has been fabulous, with patients and nurses saying it is their favourite part of the week. One heart-warming comment came from someone who said they thought they’d ‘never do gardening again’.

South Bristol Dementia-friendly Allotment

We have had a wonderful first few weeks on our new South Bristol dementia-friendly allotment. The raised beds are now full of vegetables and flowers, we’ve planted hanging baskets and created a wildlife pond, and we’ve been busy getting to know the other friendly allotment holders! We’ve even harvested our first veg – some lettuce – an occasion accompanied by a loud cheer!

Hoppiness Project

We’ve run four sessions as part of The Hoppiness Project and they’ve been going brilliantly. We now have hops in the ground at both care homes and have brought smiles to many people’s faces. Residents were disappointed that we didn’t bring any beer to the last sessions, so we plan to finish every session with beer and a sing-song in future! Participant-led coproduction for the win!

Lawrence Hill Health Centre

Sessions are going well at our Lawrence Hill Health Centre, where we’ve been extending the vegetable beds, creating beautiful mosaic signs, making new raised beds and decorating the garden and waiting room. Our aim is to transform the health practice into a vibrant space for the entire community of service users to enjoy. We want to create an environment that feels brighter and happier, enhancing the well-being of all.

With all three groups enjoying their busy schedules this summer, let’s take a look at what they’ve been up to…

‘To Still the Saints’ Exhibition at RWA Bristol

In a series of photographs by Olumide Osinoiki, the enduring spirit of the women of Evergreen Club in Easton, Bristol are celebrated and admired. Part of the Windrush era, their portraits hang alongside the Royal Collection touring exhibition, Windrush: Portraits of a Pioneering Generation which is exhibiting at the RWA until 11 August.

Bristol Elders Summer Update

Alongside their forays into the art world, members have also been enjoying their regular trips, welcoming speakers, and attending events.

Malcolm X Elders hosted a visit from a group from Leicester – celebrating Windrush together they enjoyed a film, played a quiz game and shared lunch. The Golden Agers held a successful Bring and Buy sale with lots of lovely cake, fritters and goodies. Pegasus Opera group came from Brixton and gave a performance at Malcolm X Centre for all three groups, followed by a discussion with members and a delicious lunch.

Find out more about the Bristol Elders Groups here.

This June 2024, an intrepid supporter of ours will be climbing Mount Tetnuldi, fundraising for ourselves and fellow local charity BRACE Dementia Research.

Facing altitude sickness, bitter conditions, and a whopping 4,958m (15,938 ft) ascent to the summit, Voitek, from Bristol’s Audley Redwood retirement village, will be setting out to climb one of Georgia’s highest peaks.

Inspired by his grandmother’s experience living with dementia, Voitek says: “Witnessing her journey opened my eyes to the profound impact of this condition, not only on the individuals it afflicts but also on their families and caregivers. It was this first-hand experience that ignited a fire within me – a determination to make a difference in the lives of those affected by dementia.”

“My mission extends beyond simply raising funds. It is rooted in empathy, humility, and gratitude for the invaluable lessons we have learned from our older family members. Through my journey, I aim to raise awareness about dementia and empower others to provide support and care for their loved ones with compassion and understanding.”

We wish Voitek the very best of luck and sincerely thank him for including us in his honourable mission.

If you would like to donate to Voitek’s challenge, please do so here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/voitek-korus

Our Volunteer Coordinator, Nadja, sat down with Voscur for #VolunteersWeek 2024 to highlight the crucial role our volunteers play in supporting people here at Alive.

Spotlight on Alive: Volunteers Week 2024 by Voscur

Last week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Alive, an organisation enhancing the lives of older adults, including through dementia support and nature activities. With the support of volunteers, they successfully run sessions in Bristol, Bath, South Gloucestershire, and North Somerset.

Volunteers play a crucial role in supporting people at Alive – they help with session preparation, social engagement, garden maintenance and sensory activities, which can include anything from handling different natural materials to discussing the details and uses of unique plants brought in by volunteers.

Alive offers a variety of volunteer roles across a large area, making it easy for people to find opportunities that fit their schedules and interests. To ensure accessibility, they provide both printed versions of their documents and online forms and ensure that they reimburse travel expenses to make volunteering financially accessible.

For Alive, supporting people living with dementia is an integral part of their daily operations and volunteers are a vital part of making this happen. Their Dementia Meeting Centres provide an inclusive, person-centred space where people can take part in activities that bring joy and foster a sense of community. 

Alive’s therapeutic horticulture sessions provide people with a much-needed connection to the natural world, offering physical benefits as well as improving emotional wellbeing. This has also proven to be a powerful way to create meaningful connections, reducing feelings of loneliness and isolation. 

By bringing elements of the outdoors into people’s lives, whether through hands-on gardening, sensory experiences, or reminiscing about nature trips, the charity helps bridge the gap between isolation and engagement, demonstrating the transformative and healing power of nature, with volunteers at the heart of this work.

Personal relationships are key!

Nadja Klose, Volunteer Coordinator

Alive have a dedicated person to interview and onboard each volunteer, so they know they have a consistent point of contact, and they also express their appreciation regularly through thank-you notes, birthday cards, and volunteer of the month celebrations. The activity sessions are centred around wellbeing, and they recognise that their volunteers benefit from that as well.

They also offer volunteer social events as well as online training to keep their volunteers engaged and connected. If a volunteer wants to try something new, they can switch to a different type of session or location without going through the entire onboarding process again.

The dedication and thoughtful methods from Alive’s volunteers stand out as an inspiration for others aiming to make a positive impact in similar areas.

Why not get involved? Check out our volunteering opportunities here.