We received funding from Kent Community Foundation to deliver this Elderly project with the aim of tackling disadvantage and exclusion, supporting vulnerable people and promoting opportunities for creativity, health and wellbeing. The project included activities like, reminiscing through music, art and craft sessions, visits to libraries and a DIY workshop which covered how to address plumbing, electric and condensation problems and demonstrations on plastering.
What difference has this grant made to the lives of beneficiaries and the wider community?
Feedback from the participants indicates that the project achieved all the aims and objectives, and addressed their need to more socially included. The project increased their self- worth, confidence to meet new friends, try out new activities for the first time, and assurance that they are not "alone".
The grant has contributed towards the establishment of a Befriending service, currently with 20 people from different ethnic backgrounds, and helped to recruit more volunteers.
Participants attributed success of this project mainly to the way the project was delivered, regular consultation with them, every effort was made by MEMF to remove barriers, i.e. transport, by arranging car share, and most importantly the variety of activities offered to suit everyone’s interests and needs.
This project has brought people from various ethnicities together who share similar challenges in life. With regards to regular social activities, they are now attending weekly exercise classes, walking groups started by MEMF, weekly coffee mornings, weekly sewing club and day trips. This project has enabled these people to access support services they had little knowledge about before the project. They are accessing services like, the libraries, where they learnt basic IT skills, Palliative care service, Better Medway initiatives, Stroke Association, Dementia Friends training and Medway Time Credits
Ageing Gracefully project gave the participants an impetus to continue to do volunteering as MEMF helped some of them to become members of Medway Spice Credits network and earn time credits for the first time.