On the 29th March 2017 at the Ardilaun Hotel Salthill, TY students of Presentation College Currylea will present their project entitled; “Challenging Ageism and Stereotyping of Elderly People in Society”. We feel this is an important social issue to investigate because studies have shown that ageism is hurtful, lowers self-esteem, and is a social divider among the older and younger generations. From our own surveys of young people, we found this to be true. Because of this, we wanted to break down that social barrier, as we truly believe elderly people have helped to shape, and pave the way for the future of our generation.
To start our project, we visited the residents of Greenpark Nursing Home in Tuam on Monday afternoons for twelve weeks where we enjoyed crochet and knitting classes, bingo, and singing of Christmas carols. This certainly put a smile on the residents’ faces as well as our own, and made us rethink our views towards the elderly.
To show our gratitude to their wonderful contribution to society, we decided to make personalised birthday cards for each resident, which would be hand delivered to them on the day of their birthday, with a special handwritten note of gratitude. This is to show the residents we are thinking of them on their special day and let them know we appreciate them and their wealth of knowledge. At our school, we also planted Forget-Me-Not flowers as a constant reminder that we will not forget the elderly people who live in our community. We found from our time in Greenpark that elderly people still have value and wisdom to share that should be honoured and appreciated and not forgotten. We felt the forget-me-not flowers were the obvious choice to symbolise this.
In conjunction with the Men’s Shed Association Tuam, they have kindly offered to make birdhouses for the residents of Greenpark, as a gift to acknowledge our appreciation of all they have done for this community. The Galway Camera Club have also kindly donated stunning bird visuals to be displayed in the nursing home. We also hope to link in with local primary schools to hold an Elderly Person’s Appreciation Day, to get our message across on a wider scale. The TY class will also teach a module to our first year CSPE classes on this social issue. We would also like to acknowledge the kindness of local TD Seán Canney, in financially helping with this project.
You can follow our progress of our YSI project where you will find thought-provoking and informative images revolving around or challenging ageism and stereotypes can be seen on our Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram accounts. Facebook being; ‘Forget Me Not – Pres YSI Project 2017’ Twitter being; ‘@ForgetMeNotYSI’ Snapchat being; ‘@forgetmenotysi1’ and Instagram being; ‘@forgetmenot_ysi’.
As a final thought from all of us at Presentation College, always remember, “A family with an older person has a living treasure of gold.”
By TY students of Presentation College Tuam.
