Recently, a group of students from Year 10 from The Bermuda High School visited Westmeath as part of PartnerRe’s ‘Dollars for Hours’ initiative. We went to talk to some of the residents about their lives and gather information that we could then transfer to a ‘Reminiscent Therapy Board’, a poster with pictures and words that portrays aspects of the residents’ lives. The purpose of making these boards was to help the senior citizens, who may have dementia or may have trouble communicating with others, remember events they may have forgotten, show other people what they liked and also to make them happy.

The day before our visit to Westmeath, Chrissie Kempe (Westmeath Administrator) came in to talk to us about speaking with the senior citizens and what we should try to get out of it. We all learned a lot about dementia and ageing that many of us had never considered before. One fact that really struck me was that often when people get older they lose much of their freedom. She also said that even if we don’t get any information from our visit, it would still be a success because we would have cheered up the residents just by talking to them. Although some of what we talked about was very sad, I think it made all of us more eager to help.

We went to Westmeath the next day. Before we’d even been matched with a resident, an elderly lady who had gone to BHS, an ‘old-girl’ or an alumna, came out to chat with us. This hadn’t been planned but it really made us feel welcome. She told us that seeing us made her so proud and that she loved our school. Her welcome not only made us feel more comfortable but also helped some of us realise that we might have things in common with the elderly residents who we’d interview. We each had a partner to interview the resident with. My partner and I chatted with a very nice man, his family had sent in a lot of information beforehand which made our task a lot easier and it was more beneficial to him because we could talk about what he wanted to talk about. When it came to the end of our time at Westmeath our interviewee didn’t want us to leave and we didn’t either. Not everyone was as lucky to get so much information from their interview but we all agreed that Ms Kempe had been right, no matter what we talked about we had cheered up the residents.

After the visit we all made our Reminiscent Therapy Boards which we will bring to Westmeath and present to the residents in the New Year. The Westmeath residents weren’t the only people to benefit from our trip and posters, the activity on the whole was a great learning experience for us. We realised how important it is to do little things like talking to someone, even just for an hour, because it makes them happy. We also realised how sad dementia is, as seeing people forget what they want to remember was very sad and really made what Ms Kempe told us sink in. Overall, it was a very fulfilling experience, we saw the direct impact our visit had on the residents and can also see the impact our boards will have in the future. I think this is one of the best types of community service, helping people and learning from it. We will remember our experience and what we learned and hopefully we can go back to Westmeath more in the future.