STORYTELLERS
The crux of my project intends to focus on bridging the relationship and communication between caregiver and person with dementia through storytelling and to remind them not of what they cannot do anymore, but of what they can. We often forget or do not realise even, that whenever we communicate to a person with dementia, his or her reality is not the same as our reality. In order to provide a better quality of life for the person with dementia and for them to still maintain social activities instead of retreating to isolation and seclusion, we need to encourage them to be empowered, and for them to be seen as active social agents.
The purpose of transforming them to be storytellers is to invite the person with dementia to open up again, with the goal of providing them, a valued role. To remove the pressure to remember, it can significantly help with their levels of engagement. This can change how communities see them — they are no longer invisible, but they can become storytellers.