Giving a Voice to Persons Living with Dementia - three wonderful opportunities to share your experiences!

Recently, MAREP was contacted and informed about a few wonderful opportunities for people living with dementia to share their own journey and to also discuss issues with others who are also living with the symptoms of dementia. 

Mary McKinlay was diagnosed in 2005 with early onset Alzheimer's disease at the age of 61.  One of the ways Mary has been documenting and sharing her own personal experiences of living with dementia is through the use of an online journal.  This online journal was originally intended for family and friends but has now grown to reach a much broader audience - three to five thousand viewers. Mary states on her website "I write in my Journal several times a month and I'm hoping my experiences and observations can help others on this journey." Please feel free to visit Mary and Jim (her husband)'s website Welcome to OUR PLACE and share your comments and experiences.

 

Kate Swaffer, a poet, writer, chef, and an advocate/activist for aged care, dementia care, and health care service provision, and a person living with dementia, has created a new blog entitled Global Dementia Voices.  Kate's hopes to "encouage people with dementia to tell their stories, to write about their concerns, and to help those caring for them to more fully understand what it is really like for them."  Kate was inpsired to create the Global Dementia Voices blog by a volunteer for Cancer Voices SA (www.cancervoicesa.org.au), who was a cancer survivor herself.  Kate also has another website and blog entitled Creating life with words - Inspiration, love and truth.  Please feel free to contribute to the Global Dementia Voices blog and share your own journey.

Richard Taylor, a person living with dementia and in colloboration with Laura Bramly, writer and editor of the I CAN! I WILL! idea library, will be facilitating a virtual meeting entitled Meeting of the Minds.  Using online webinar software that people can access through their own computers, A Meetintg of the Minds is intended to provide an opportunity for people living with dementia to discuss and identify the issues that most affect them.  The next date for this virtual meeting is for Tuesday, October 23 (10 a.m. PT, 12 p.m. CT, 1 p.m. ET, 2 p.m. AT, and 2:30 p.m. in NFL).  To register to be a part of this meeting or for more information, please email RTaylorsAssistant@gmail.com.