You’ll
wonder what I am going to do in London during the next nine months. Well, I am
going to work for Pam Schweitzer, founder and coordinator of the European
Reminiscence Network.
What is
reminiscence? Reminiscence is the act of remembering experiences and events
from the past. And this is what Pam has been helping people do during the last
thirty years. She describes herself as a person who likes to listen to people’s
stories and she really knows how to make them feel comfortable, how to ask you
the right questions and create the right mood for remembering.
Pam started
as a drama teacher in the 1970s and one day she experienced by chance how a
group of old ladies became young again while telling stories about the time
when they were seventeen. She also observed that the act of remembering
together created links between them. She then invited a group of her students
to record these ladies’ memories and create a piece of drama, which was
performed at school and in the residential unit where the ladies lived.
The show
was a success, but it was only performed twice, so Pam decided to set up a
professional company, Age Exchange, which
would make plays out of people’s memories and go on tour to residential homes,
community centres... From the very beginning, they decided that they would not
perform in theatres but would take theatre to the places where older people
lived or met. After the play, there was a discussion with the audience and this
would trigger new memories.
Many were
the topics of these plays: childhood memories, people’s first jobs, going to
the doctor before the National Health Service existed, emigration to the UK...
Along the years, Pam worked not only with professional actors; she also founded
The Good Companions, a company of
senior citizens that also performed together with young actors.
You can
read more about Pam and her projects in her website: www.pamschweitzer.com
There is
also a very interesting book I’d recommend you: Reminiscence Theatre: Making Theatre from Memories, pulished in
2006 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Pam founded
the European
Reminiscence Network in 1993 with partners in 16 European countries.
The Network now has partners in 20 countries and many associates in USA,
Canada, India, Latin America, Australia and the Far East.
Since 1997 the
members European Reminiscence Network have worked with people with dementia and
their carers. The first project was called Remembering
Yesterday, Caring Today. This led to further projects: Making Memories Matter (which involved artists from seven countries
working with individual older people to create ‘Life Portraits’ or ‘Memory
Boxes’ around their life experience), or Sites
and Signs of Remembrance.
The ERN
latest project is Remembering Together:
Reminiscence Training (RTRT), which is a development of Remembering Yesterday, Caring Today. According
to the ERN website, in these projects “families who are caring for a relative
with dementia at home can participate in a series of reminiscence sessions with
professional and volunteer support. The purpose of these sessions is to engage
families in remembering, recording, celebrating and sharing their long life
histories and increasing their social integration in their local communities”.
The current project aims at creating reminiscence groups in the countries who
participate and train people to facilitate these groups.
This
training comprises two stages:
· A two-day training course.
· A four-month apprenticeship period.
This year I
am going to train to become a facilitator of reminiscence groups. I’ll tell you
about this experience in my following post.
Photos: Lorenzo Hernandez www.photolorenzohernandez.com
Photos: Lorenzo Hernandez www.photolorenzohernandez.com
Congratulations, Marta! This sounds like a wonderful & meaninful life experience! Rescuing those buried memories from the past heals and gives people back the place where they belong too. I love the idea! Enjoy loads xxx
ReplyDeleteThank you Gloria. I think this is an experience you'd really appreciate. A big hug.
DeleteMarta this is lovely. It was so nice to meet you at the training. Are there any other photos that Lorenzo would like to share from that day? I look forward to following your blog more. Margaret
ReplyDeleteThere's going to be an entry about the training soon :)
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