Alzheimer Mexico - Learn and Act

It is our pleasure to share with you our project activities, from February through April 2018.

The patients and family members had enjoyed a lot the recent spring days and the events we carried out at our Day Care Center:

• Celebration of Valentine’s Day, February, 14  
• Global Health Team, February 12 – March 2
• Spring celebration, March 21
• Easter celebration, March 23
• Children’s Day, April 30

February starts for our caring team with the preparations for the annual Valentine Day’s celebration. This year you can appreciate the huge heart built by red and white balloons where users sit in front of for the picture! Obviously after shooting followed dancing… enjoying a great time!

On March 26, our eldest “grandma” celebrated her birthday: 92 years! She is coming to our Day Care Center since 2010, and you can see how those eight years have made a big difference in her life and in her family’s life as well. Her disease has not advanced so fasten, and thanks to the therapies and simulation she receives every day in our Day Care Center, her quality of life has been better. She has not progressed yet to the last stage, being completely dependent and tied to bed, without being able to walk, to speak, to eat on herself…..she is very active and you can see her big smile! Many congratulations!

During the months of February and March, we received a very special visit. After a long application period, we were chosen to receive an in-kind donation we were very glad about. Three consultants (from Japan, United States and England) spent three weeks with us in order to learn about our institutional challenges, and to help us to scale our scope of work to another level. Thank you so much Global Health Team for all your insights and recommendations! We had a great time, and we appreciate very much all your support.

Spring arrives on March 21, and we did several celebrations. First, there was a special Reiki ceremony to welcome spring, and warmer days, and to receive the energy from the cosmos. Later on, the Caregiver team prepared some dynamics and role plays with all of the persons with dementia, and also with some of the family members who joined us this day.

This year, the Holy Week was early, so we started celebrations on Friday, March 23. This year we offered for the first time an unusual celebration, German style. Therefore, we boiled eggs and with all the patients and the staff, we had a great moment to color those boiled warm eggs. Many patients experienced for the first time how a white egg converted into a blue, red, green or yellow one! Then, after having had a little snack, the Easter rabbit already hid so well the eggs, that it took a while until the last one was found. We wished you all spent a very happy Easter season with your family!

On Abril 30, Mexico celebrates Children’s Day, and so did we at our Day Care Center. It was a very pleasant, delightful celebration with all the persons with dementia, who still remember very well their childhood! Today it was a special pleasure to see them dressed up to this unique occasion, which was a huge pool of clowns, dolls and even Minnie Mouse among us!

Please do not forget to stay tuned for our weekly radio program on internet Alzheimer Aprende y Actúa (Alzheimer’s Learn and Act), every Tuesday from 13 to 14 hours (Mexico City time) on www.radioapyt.com

We share with you a picture from our radio program on February 13, where the members of the Global Health Team joined us in a very interesting interview.

Your questions and comments are always very welcomed!

We are so pleased to share with you our project activities, from November 2017 through January 2018.

As you can see on our first picture, the beneficiaries at Alzheimer Mexico’s Day Care Center want to wish you a very happy New Year, full of good energy, health and success!

During the last months, we had many events. Some of those events were the following ones:

• Celebration of the traditional Death Day, November, 1st  
• Closing of 2017 training courses, November
• Christmas lunch with families, December 7^th
• Posada 2017
• Team’s gift swap, December 22^th
• Rosca de Reyes, January 8^th
• Strategic Planning meeting, January 28^th

As usual, the first day of November, the Mexican population celebrate and honor their dead beloved ones. This celebration has a very high value during the yearlong activities in our Day Care Center. Patients and staff prepare long time before, during a couple of weeks or more, all the necessary for a gorgeous activity, which starts from preparing the Death Altar to preparing the decoration, and to preparing the special clothing this day. Patients really love to dress themselves up as a “Catrina” or a devil, or whatever they want to appear as. Family members are very involved, encouraging them to put on a costume, they often prepare on their own. It’s a very impressive and joyful event!

Alzheimer Mexico IAP carried out –during 2017- four training courses of trainers. One hundred sixty one women (trainers) from the Mexico City government, who oversee 600 elder peoples’ homes each, received basic training at our Day Care Center about how to recognize, deal with and take care of persons with dementia. Adding the new trained trainers, this program has achieved to train 471 trainers in Mexico City who are now able to share the information about dementia during their visits to the homes where elder people are living, spreading the information and guide about caring for a person with dementia at home to 282,600 families all over Mexico City. We know that this is a huge impact on more than a million persons who have now access to information about dementia and care of dementia patients.

Our traditional end of the year gathering with all patients, families and donors took place this year on December 7 in our Day Care Center. The secretary of our Board donated the meal and received a huge applause! Thank you so much for the generous donation we enjoyed so much! The chair of the Board, Lilia Groues del Mazo, high lightened in her speech the main achievements during 2017 with a very special recognition of the staff, their hard work and the quality of the services provided. The other milestone was, without any doubts, the recognition (prize) from Compartir Social Foundation in the best charity category.

One of the traditional celebrations during the Holiday season in Mexico is the “Posada” (A "posada navideña" is a reenactment of Mary and Joseph's search for a place to stay in Bethlehem where the Christ child was later born) where one group of people represent Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay. So, this group outside is pledging and knocking at the door in order that the group inside allows them to enter the house and to stay. All the patients participate very fervently in this celebration!

Our Day Care Center closed on December 22 for holidays and the last day staff members enjoyed very much their gift swap. This year, all members agreed on chocolates as the gift to be swapped as a small sign of esteem and recognition between the team members. They burst into laughter and curiosity at every different kind of chocolates they discovered. A very stress releasing and encouraging afternoon, we spent together. Many thanks to the whole team for their hard work, every day, all days long!

During the usual January 6 celebration (Three Kings’ Day), we shared with all patients, some family and staff members the Rosca de Reyes, which is a traditional King cake, and who finds a little doll (king) in its piece of cake, has to bring tamales on February 2! Tamales will come very soon!

The Board started a strategic planning process on November 2017 that was continued during a follow up meeting last Sunday, January 28. Board members are very committed and exciting about the new challenges the institution will face this year: to achieve sustainability in financial and social terms, to scale up the model implementation and to carry out a clear communication and positioning campaign. We will maintain you all informed about the progress of those ambitious goals during 2018.

Please do not forget to stay tuned for our weekly radio program on internet Alzheimer Aprende y Actúa (Alzheimer’s Learn and Act), every Tuesday from 13 to 14 hours (Mexico City time) on www.radioapyt.com Questions and comments are very welcomed!