Wellington-based dementia care charity Reminiscence Learning has received a grant of £5,000 to help boost its outdoor dementia awareness courses for young people and activity courses for those affected by dementia across Somerset.
The grant will fund 15 sessions for people with young onset dementia and young people aged 14 to 16 who have been excluded from school to help encourage a more dementia-friendly community. The sessions will bring together two generations to work together on a number of outdoors activities such as fire building and constructing birdfeeders and bird tables, which will be held at Otterhead Forest School in Taunton.
The donation was provided by the Santander Foundation, which offers Discovery Grants to UK registered charities for projects that help disadvantaged people in local communities.
Reminiscence Learning specialises in dementia care, reminiscence activities and life story work, providing both training and community projects such as The Archie Project, a dementia awareness project that links primary schools, care homes, sheltered housing schemes, businesses, services and community members to ultimately create dementia friendly communities.
The grant will enable Reminiscence Learning to help young people on the course to develop their learning capacity, communication and problem-solving ability as well as emotional well-being while reducing the stigma associated with dementia.
Fiona Mahoney, Chief Executive at Reminiscence Learning said: “This will enable us to run an exciting and unique pilot project that will bond people with dementia and children who have been excluded from school. By enabling both the adults and children to work and play together in an outside setting, this will give them the opportunity to share new ideas and stories and form new friendships which we hope will have a positive impact on their future behavior and the way they ultimately look at life.”
Lisa Tollett, Branch Manager at Santander’s Honiton branch said: “The Santander Foundation makes hundreds of donations every year to good causes throughout the UK. We appreciate our role in the local community and are delighted to be supporting Reminiscence Learning. We expect the donation to make a real difference to local people.”
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Notes to Editors:
Media Contact
Leonora Burtenshaw at Santander
Email: leonora.burtenshaw@santander.co.uk Tel: 020 7756 4543
Emma Green at Reminiscence Learning Email: emma@reminiscencelearning.co.uk Tel: 01823 323752
About Reminiscence Learning
Reminiscence Learning a Wellington based charity specialise in dementia, reminiscence, activities and lifestory work - delivering both training for healthcare professionals, family carers and volunteers and community sessions for the older person, those with memory problems or dementia and their carers and those who may feel lonely and isolated in their community.
They also created and deliver the multi award winning intergenerational dementia awareness Archie Project which links local primary schools, care homes, sheltered housing schemes, businesses/services and community members to reduce the fear and stigma often associated with dementia and create more dementia friendly communities.
For more information please visit: www.reminiscencelearning.co.uk
Santander Foundation
The Santander Foundation is at the heart of the Bank’s community activities, providing grants to small charities and social enterprises working with disadvantaged people to fund skills, knowledge and innovation projects across the UK. Discovery Grants of up to £5,000 are available to support three types of activity:
- Explorer: improving people’s knowledge
- Transformer: supporting skills and experience
- Changemaker: innovative solutions to social challenges
Over the last five years, the Santander Foundation has provided £26 million in funding to 13,914 UK charities through Discovery Grants and Staff Matched Donations. For more information please visit: www.santanderfoundation.org.uk
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. It has brought real competition to the UK, through its innovative products for retail customers and relationship banking model for UK SMEs. At 31 March 2018, the bank has c19,500 employees. It serves around 14 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking; and 64 regional Corporate Business Centres. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.