Vote for Sidmouth’s Memory Cafe to win!

Everyone living in East Devon is being urged to vote for a local finalist in a national competition for lottery funding.

The Sid Valley Memory Cafe for dementia sufferers will be one of seven good causes to be featured on BBC television’s The One Show this week to promote an online vote that closes in September.

At about the same time as the TV show is screened at 7pm on Wednesday (2 July), East Devon District Council’s Cabinet will be meeting. And Sidmouth Town ward member Peter Sullivan will ask councillors and members of the public to support the Memory Cafe bid.

Councillor Sullivan, who is also EDDC’s Health and Wellbeing Champion, will say: “I would urge all those here tonight and indeed everyone in East Devon to go online and vote for this very worthy cause.

“The Memory Cafe’s ‘Moments in Time’* project is the only local good cause to reach the shortlist of seven. They are up against some pretty stiff opposition from places like the Museum of Liverpool and Portsmouth’s Mary Rose Museum, so we have to do all we can to see our project win through.

“Moments in Time is all about helping people who are suffering from a condition that is becoming more and more of an issue in our society as we all live longer. Helping to understand and offset the impact of dementia is a really important element of the wider public health agenda both locally and nationally. It’s the only finalist that is a project purely designed to help people and I hope everyone in East Devon will get behind it”.

The Memory Cafe is one of seven finalists in the Best Heritage Project category of the 2014 National Lottery Awards.

'Moments in Time’ hopes to inspire others to realise that no matter what dementia is, or what dementia does, reminiscence and nostalgia can make a person feel valued for who they are and the stories they have to share.

The project is run by the Sid Valley Memory Café, an organisation that supports people with memory problems and their families and carers. It uses heritage to improve lives and unite people living with dementia with others who share memories of growing up, living and working in Sidmouth. In this way, it reduces isolation, encourages new friendships and triggers long-forgotten memories – since older memories will often remain intact, even when the capacity to ‘make’ new memories and recall very recent events is lost or severely impaired.

Through the project, people living with dementia and their carers have taken part in a wide variety of reminiscence trips to heritage sites, enjoyed talks from local historians, handled props and artifacts from their childhood and shared many, many stories. Volunteers have been trained in reminiscence work and a lasting and important legacy has been created: the Moments in Time Memory Book and website.

This collection of unique and entertaining, local stories has become a wonderful local history collection for the wider community. ‘Moments in Time’ has also helped to create a dementia-friendly generation: college students have been trained in dementia awareness and taken part in intergenerational reminiscence sessions and visits to the Memory Café.

To vote, visit: http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/project/moments-time