Today during our visit to Peace haven Bedok, we tried out a new bowling activity with the elderly at the beginning of the session that they seemed to enjoy. Throughout, we made a conscious effort to maintain a supportive and encouraging attitude – which we found helped to beckon more of the shy elderly into participating in the activity. As the activity took place on the table top as opposed to the floor, we all made sure to position ourselves around the table to ensure that the pins and ball could be retrieved easily. However, after around 20 minutes of running the activity, we took a suggestion to start throwing and catching the ball in a circle. Yet, the main difficulty came when we realised that not all of the elderly were able to throw and catch confidently and consistently. Therefore, we tweaked the activity slightly in the sense that we would roll the ball across the table to each other, in a manner where everyone was included. Soon enough, the passing started to speed up and we found ourselves laughing along with the elderly as we, too had a really enjoyable time. Moving forward, we think that interactive activities such as these will definitely help to build healthy relationships that will help them to feel at ease around us despite the language barrier. All in all, it is almost definite that this was one of our favourite activities over the course of our visits to the centre – seeing as the elderly were truly engaged and smiling at the end of it.
Written BY: Ashia Norhalim
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