ENFIELD: Five members of a student group connected to Cape Breton University have been hard at work on programming aimed at creating positivity and making seniors at a local facility feel like they’re not alone.
Christina MacEachern of Enfield; Leanne Malley of Fall River; Christina Mouchayleh of Halifax; Jenna Kaulbach, of Halifax; and Tabytha Cole of Dartmouth are all working toward obtaining a Bachelor of Arts, Community Studies (BACS) degree via online learning with CBU.
“As part of our course we were to find an issue within our community that we could design and implement a Community Action Project, for in hopes of making a positive difference,” said Malley. “The community issues that we chose to focus on were loneliness and social isolation, specifically within the senior population.”
MacEachern said while looking further into this topic, the group learned the consequences of suffering from loneliness and social isolation can be severe.
“All aspects of an individual’s health can be affected, and it has been linked to an increased risk of dementia and even death,” said MacEachern. “Furthermore, with the introduction of COVID-19 into our world a year ago, the senior population are now at an increased risk of suffering from loneliness and social isolation.”
Cole said it quickly became a no-brainer to the group that this was the direction they wanted to take and began thinking of ways to help potentially affected individuals.
“Knowing that COVID-19 could be with us for a long while, we’ve all had to adapt to a new “normal,” said Kaulbach. “As our world changes to accommodate mandated health restrictions, we’ve had to find more creative solutions to support seniors and other vulnerable populations as in-person interactions are challenging and sometimes not possible.”
Mouchayleh said they chose the Magnolia Continuing Care Community is Enfield because one of the group members has a connection there through a friend.
“We all live in the HRM/East Hants communities as well, which persuaded us to work with a local organization,” she said.
She said that Staci Smith, the recreational therapist at Magnolia Continuing Care Community, provided them with positive feedback via emails.
“We could tell by hearing the reactions of residents that they were enjoying the programming,” she said. “Each week we continued to have residents participate and engage, which we took as a positive sign.”
Part of the program saw two musicians provide musical entertainmen virtually on Feb. 23. The artists were John Simms and Katherine Simms, who are known to one of the group members.
“When we reached out to them about the possibility of a virtual music program they immediately jumped on board and were more than happy to make that program a reality,” said MacEachern.
Mouchayleh and Cole said the aim of the program was to provide fun and engaging programming for seniors on a virtual platform due to restrictions around in-person interactions during the pandemic.
“Our hope is that the connections made between our community partners may continue,” said Kaulbach.
Malley said in the beginning they were nervous and unsure of how it would play out, if it would be well received considering the programs would need to be delivered on a virtual platform, running into issues with technology, etc.
“As we planned out the programs for what they would look like, how we would facilitate them we were getting excited, and after each program was completed,” said Malley, “we found ourselves talking about how much fun it was and hoped the residents enjoyed it as much as we did.
“We are so thankful that the Magnolia Continuing Care Community allowed us the opportunity to get involved,and hearing that they plan to continue with virtual programming going forward is more than we could have wanted from this project.”