Award-winning dementia team wins £103,000 boost

THE ARORA Dementia Friendly Community Team at An Lanntair in Stornoway has been successful in its bid for a National Lottery award for £103,536 from the Big Lottery Fund to continue and develop its award-winning Dementia Friendly Community work for a further two years, writes Mark Entwistle.

The project will have a new name ‘Cianalas’ (meaning ‘belonging’ in Gaelic) and will move towards academic research to work with universities and communities, while retaining the core support events of the current Arora project.

This Big Lottery fund has been match-funded by £51,470 from Life Changes Trust, which has been the project’s core funder for the past three years. The Life Changes Trust was set up in April 2013 with a 10-year, £50 million endowment from the Big Lottery Fund. Since April 2015, the Arora project team has been building on An Lanntair’s existing education and outreach work by supporting people living with dementia and those in their circle of care with cultural, arts and heritage work.

The project has been led by the people in the community, shaping the project work according to their interests and strengths, which has led to intergenerational working with nurseries and primary schools, care centres, day centres, hospitals and community groups.

The project will also be hosting a symposium at An Lanntair on April 23 and 24, including an exhibition, academic symposium and workshop series to celebrate the past three years’ work, while looking ahead.

Paula Brown, Arora project co-ordinator, said: ‘The team is thrilled with the opportunity to continue to develop our work with our community through culture, arts and heritage projects, and to inform the development of our work with academic partners.

‘Both of these awards are worth more than the essential funds and represent valuable acknowledgement of the value of our work together as a community.’