Activity details
The Weister is a group of three residential care homes for older people with and without dementia, and families in need in the City of Kortijk. It provides services for the City Council of Kortijk via its welfare committee: OCMW Kortijk. Although the Weister is applying to join the Action Group D4, it is willing to create a new action group on the challenges linked to dementia, in line with the EIP on AHA Strategic Implementation Plan. The Weister pays particular attention to the range of meaningful activities which allow residents to live a ‘normal’ daily life according to their individual abilities and needs, and have permanent contact with the outside world. Through EFID, the European Foundation’s Initiative on Dementia, the Weister is working jointly with the Italian partner ‘Rifugio Re Carlo Alberto’ to improve the dementia friendliness of community, leisure and tourism services in Kortrijk, Belgium. Leisure and tourism have been chosen as the access point to local communities because Flanders and the Alps are local and international tourist destinations. In Belgium there is growing focus on people with dementia (PWD) at a political level on creating local dementia-friendly environments (e.g the governments’ dementia plan). The Weister is committed to produce and improve information and its accessibility regarding the dementia friendliness of the geographical area of Kortrijk and demonstrate the role of PWD as a key resource in achieving dementia-friendly cities and communities. Expected results include:
1. Address expressed needs of PWD.
2. Promote their social inclusion.
3. Facilitate their participation.
4. Raise awareness of dementia and dementia-friendly communities.
5. Build strategic networks.
6. Build capacity to support PWD to live well in the community.
Action Group:
- D4 Age friendly environments
Lead organisation name:
WZC De Weister - OCMW Kortrijk
Organisation country:
- Belgium
Contact person:
Jan Goddaer
Contact person email:
jan.goddaer@ocmwkortrijk.be
Activity type:
- Commitment
Start date:
01/09/2015
Geographic_coverage:
- BELGIQUE-BELGIË
Last update: 16/05/2017
Current Status
Ongoing
The joint project "Out and about with dementia" developed with the "Rifugio Re Carlo Alberto (Italy) and supported by EFID finished in March 2017. The project achieved results in the following categories: community participation; participation of people with dementia; awareness raising; new services developed or planned. In particular, over 150 lay citizens and more than 70 business and associations were involved in the project. Companies understood the value of providing more dementia-friendly services and spaces. Over 80 people living with dementia and 20 caregivers were involved since the very beginning of the project, demonstrating the importance of the participation of people with dementia in every phase of the project. There was an overwhelming response from social and traditional media to help 'put out there' information about what dementia is and isn't and that there are ways of living well with dementia. The holiday exchange helped to distinguish the project from other awareness raising projects and created a feel good factor that helped the media to talk about dementia in a positive way without undermining the difficulties. A 30-minute documentary film has been produced. Beside these results, the first 4 dementia friendly hotels were established in Italy (3) and Kortrijk (1) and several sport activities and a dementia-friendly mountain walk to an Alpine Refuge were developed. Finally, the project implemented useful dementia-friendly cultural mediation and translation services for international visitors in the case of hospitalization or other emergencies.
Our work towards dementia-friendly tourism in Kortrijk has reached key decision makers at local and regional level, namely service of public welfare, sport, leisure, tourism, culture and the Flemish government. In particular, we created a dementia-friendly guided promenade in the centre of Kortrijk in collaboration with the West-Flemish Guide Association. Moreover, we created a dementia-friendly holiday in collaboration with local businesses such as the FOCUS Hostel, the West-Flemish Guide Association, local pubs, WZC De Weister, etc.
Finally, a brand new sport programme is now accessible to people with dementia, thanks to the work done with the service of sport of the city of Kortrijk.
The week-long awareness raising campaign "Move for Dementia" (20-27 November 2016) involved the community, people with dementia and their caregivers, local authorities, artists and a dance company. A week full of activities to engage people and raise awareness on dementia.
