To celebrate the International Day of Older People on Sunday the 1st of October, Leeds City Museum curated a wonderful display of thousands of forget-me-not flowers which had been created by community groups around Leeds. As a symbol of memory and love, the forget-me-not flower was chosen to raise awareness of Dementia, and as you may recognise this is also the symbol for the Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friends. This years theme for the International Day of Older People was diversity, and it was great to see people of all ages, cultural backgrounds and abilities coming together to celebrate the day.
Touchstone’s Dementia Café group attended on the day and were able to see their hand-crafted clay flowers on display. This was a great opportunity for the group to see how their work contributed to this amazing city-wide exhibition. The group enjoyed listening to songs from the ‘Giving Voice’ choir, and hearing from contestants in the ‘Growing Older’ poetry competition, which explored the challenges and experiences of ageing from the perspectives of people young and old.
This event was a touching celebration of the diversity and community contributions of older people in Leeds, and showcased the fantastic work being done to make Leeds a dementia friendly city. Touchstone’s Dementia Café group were so pleased to have been able to come along on the day to see the exhibition, listen to the speeches, and spend some time with their peers in Leeds. The afternoon was rounded off with tea and cake, and a chance for everyone to socialise, appreciate the artworks and meet like minded people.
