By Regina Altena | Project Leader
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:
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!
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