If you have a small amount of time each week, or each month try helping the elderly.......

Hi my names Mai and I work on a residential floor at a care home for the elderly. I love my job and couldnt think of a more rewarding one. We have four carers looking after 33 residents in total on a 24-hr basis. We would like to give our residents more one-to-one care but we simply dont get the time. Our time is taken up by making cups of tea, making breakfast, helping people when they get in a mess, putting washing away, giving baths and loads of other jobs that fill our day. Unfortunately this means that those who dont get visitors dont ever really get to sit down and have a nice chat with someone which is an essential part of their care and wellbeing. I am calling for you good guys at FWT to find a little time and go to you local care home just to sit and talk to a few residents that dont get visitors. I have known of people to be in residential care for years and not have a single person visiting them. This can be incredibly depressing and often through no fault of their own, the resident has perhaps not had children, or have moved away from where the originally lived, or a lot of their friends are elderly now and cant come to visit. You can make a persons day, week or even year just by spending a little time to have a cup of tea and a chat to them. Think about what these guys have done for you over the years, the freedom they have fought for, the wars they have battled through. We can all give a little back by finding some time and popping down to our local care home and speaking with the manager. So I call to you FWT....go and put some smiles on some wrinkly faces!

Please let me know how you get on, I would love to hear that someone has had some visitors off the back of this :0)

Tags: aged, care, community, elderly, free, help

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Comment by icklespecklefrog on July 12, 2009 at 10:17am: That sounds brill Meg, keep it up, I am sure it means the world to them

Comment by Meghan Collier on July 11, 2009 at 12:55am: Ah, my show choir does this (: We go to lots of elderly homes and perform during the Christmas season for them. It's magical to see their faces light up when they hear some of the songs we sing and dance to for them.

Comment by icklespecklefrog on July 9, 2009 at 4:22am: Your organisation sounds great too, keep up the good work!

Comment by icklespecklefrog on July 8, 2009 at 3:28pm: Not at all, just give whatever time you can, even if it turns out to be just half an hour a month or something. Whatever time you give I can gaurentee it will be worthwhile for the resident and you will come away feeling great. It is a fantastic feeling knowing you are making someones day just by giving them a little of your time.

Comment by Sarah Sarah on July 8, 2009 at 9:59am: Thanks for the suggestion! I'm moving so I'm not sure how much time I'll have with a new job in a new town. Does it matter if you just do it once, or do you need to commit/do they expect you to come back somewhat regularly? I think this is a great idea, and I'd hate to set someone up to be disappointed, too. At my organization we just started a program to help find people to visit immigrants who are imprisoned at detention centers. Sometimes their friends or family also are undocumented and so they're not able to visit them and it's a pretty scary place to be. I think it's so important for people not to feel alone--this is a wonderful suggestion!