Monday 11/02/18
Today’s session was an in-school session and we introduced the new 9th grade students to the service. We established what dementia is and how we work with Apex Harmony Lodge and their residents to help stimulate their memories and interact with members of the community who don’t see much. We also took a few minutes to explore Apex Harmony Lodge’s website to learn about their mission (and for the 11th graders, a refresher!) After this, I shared an article that talks about the bigger picture in Singapore in terms of dementia, Alzheimer’s, and how Singapore is acting on making institutions to aid with the people who may have these mental conditions. Reading it made me think about how we can increase the scope of the activities we do at school to have a wider impact on the community, and I really felt proud to be a part of one of the many ways that we’re tackling the issue of social stigmatization of people with mental health impairments. Below are some examples of the understandings students came to by reading the article.
I think that having the students read the article and write a bit about what they learned from it was a great way to consolidate their understanding of what dementia is, and also recognize that this is part of a much larger social issue in Singapore.