People with dementia will see their life on stage thanks to a new scheme which uses theatre to reduce isolation and reconnect people with their memories.
The Camberwell-based Dot Collective has received an £18,000 grant from City Bridge Trust – the City of London Corporation’s charity funder – for its ‘A Map To You’ project.
Professional playwrights work with people with dementia and their families, taking elements from their lives and incorporating them into a short play which the participant and their families can watch.
As part of the scheme, which evolved out of a switch from group sessions to more individual work during lockdown, participants also get an audio, video and text version of the play to keep.
City Bridge Trust Chairman Giles Shilson said:
“Maintaining social connections and keeping the brain stimulated are vital to slowing the effects of dementia, but these are things that have been hard for many people to do during the enforced isolation of lockdown.
“The Dot Collective has come up with a really inspired way of reconnecting people with dementia to their own lives, triggering memories and using the power of theatre to promote wellbeing.”
A Map To You also features storytelling workshops – group sessions where people with dementia are encouraged to share their memories, using props, costumes and music to stimulate their imagination.
The Dot Collective was founded by Laura Harling in memory of her late grandmother, Dorothy Harling, after whom the charity is named, who had dementia and was resident in a care home in East Sussex.
The Dot Collective Artistic Director Laura Harling said:
“My grandmother didn’t have very interesting activities or social stimulation and she went into a rapid decline. Often it’s the case that when people with dementia don’t have that, they just give up.
“A Map To You is about connecting families back together through the shared memories of the past, while creating new memories in the present.
“It is a really joyful experience which has a lasting impact for participants, who get a real sense of achievement, and their families, who get to have a keepsake of something their love-one took part in and enjoyed.”
More information about The Dot Collective is at www.thedotcollective.com
The City of London Corporation’s charity funder, City Bridge Trust, is London’s biggest independent grant giver, making grants of over £25 million a year to tackle disadvantage across the capital – www.citybridgetrust.org.uk
