“Echo hilft!” Special Fund: Additional Support for four Dementia Projects in the Darmstadt Region

[Translate to EN English:] Helfende Hände: Pflegerin betreut alte Frau mit Gehstock

For 15 years, the Darmstädter Echo has supported charitable initiatives in the region with its “Echo hilft!” fundraising campaign. Every year, its focus is on a particular issue – in 2020/21 it was about dementia, which not only poses major challenges to those individuals affected and their family members but to our society as a whole. As in previous years, SAGST has supported the selected five major funding projects with €5,000 each (find out more). In addition, there was a special donation of €10,000: it went in equal portions to four small initiatives, which do exemplary work for people with dementia and their family members in Darmstadt, on the Bergstrasse and in the Gross-Gerau district.

The Hiergeblieben association in the Darmstadt district of Kranichstein is committed to maintaining good supply systems so that residents in the district can continue to live in their familiar surroundings even in old age. In the medium term, a service centre should therefore crosslink outpatient care, social counselling and volunteer work together. Even now, a neighbourhood rendezvous with a café, lunch menu and other programmes is bringing life to this multicultural quarter in which people from around 80 nations have made their home. The association intends to use the money from the special fund to finance transformations as part of the “DeMigranz” project (Dementia and Migration in Kranichstein). These are required for the planned teahouse for immigrant seniors from Turkey and Russia as well as for the association’s website in the Turkish and Russian languages.

Darmstadt is also the location of the Villa Mathildenhöhe, a shared housing project for people with dementia. Twelve residents live here currently, who are provided with an ideal environment consisting of a well-structured daily routine, various leisure activities such as singing or reading aloud. As the shared house’s bathroom facilities are not yet completely barrier-free, the special donation comes in very handy: it enables the main bathroom to be renovated, which will make daily showering easier.

What support do family members need when the first signs of dementia appear? How can they deal with the changed situation of someone close to them? The Weschnitztal dementia network in Rimbach will respond to questions like this in lectures for family members of dementia patients – with the €2,500 from SAGST, they can be provided free of charge. The network that operates under the umbrella of the Diakonisches Werk Bergstrasse also helps caregiving relatives, for example, with information about outpatient or inpatient care options, provides tips on arranging living spaces and brings those affected together to exchange their experiences.

The dementia network in Gross-Gerau, which organises group programmes for dementia patients under the umbrella of the Riedstadt Social Community Foundation, wishes to use the donation to take excursions with small groups in the region in the spring. Their destinations are intended to be special places associated with memories, such as in the Odenwald, on the Bergstrasse but also in Darmstadt or Mainz. In addition, they wish to acquire contemporary, target-group friendly materials – for the exercise group for people with dementia, for example, which has only taken place as individual sessions and virtually as a video option on Vimeo since early 2020 due to the coronavirus contact restrictions.