This week we launched this year's Archie Project in Year 4 a project we have been involved in this for several years. 

The Archie Project is an exciting intergenerational dementia awareness project that links local primary schools, care homes/ sheltered housing schemes, businesses/ services and community members to ultimately dispel the fear and stigma often associated with dementia and create more dementia friendly communities.

The charity Reminiscence Learning came to school and launched the project with the children. Introduced the children to Archie, a scarecrow who has been diagnosed with dementia. She then provided dementia awareness training by using child-friendly language and answered the children’s questions. 

Through links with local care homes we hope to continue to support our community at the same time as teaching the children about this charity and dementia.  Research has shown that this is very beneficial for the elderly residents as well as the children and we hope the experience is something the children will remember for life, whilst helping them address the school values of respect and empathy. 

Due to the success of this project over several year we managed to access some funding. Co-Op in Larkhall chose us as one of their community projects. Below is a photo of Mrs Merrett collecting a huge cheque for £2015 that will be used to support this project.