What is Healthy Brain, Healthy Life?
The Healthy Brain, Healthy Life project is run by Bournemouth University and uses creative and culturally tailored approaches to co-create interactive workshops about brain health and dementia prevention for minority ethnic communities.
Despite national strategies including the NHS Dementia prevention strategy and the dementia profile indicators, there is still a disconnect between healthy lifestyle practices, brain health and dementia, particularly for individuals from minority ethnic communities.
We were approached to design a survey for the participants of each event, and a team of our volunteers then got stuck in with each theme and conducted the survey with the participants at the end of each session.
The workshops use traditional food, music, storytelling and other creative approaches exploring brain health. Through the workshops, Bournemouth University will also co-create digital stories and culturally tailored resources, such as recipes, to reach wider minority ethnic audiences.
Our volunteer Liv attended three sessions run on traditional food, creating with our hands, and music movement and mind. We asked her to write a blog about her experience, and to encourage others to take part in the two remaining sessions – stimulating the brain and storytelling round the fire!
Liv's experience of the project
“I didn’t have many expectations the first week, I knew a group of people were going to be cooking and I would be conducting a survey, but I didn’t expect to join in. I met all types of people, there was a mum who runs a YouTube cooking channel, couples, best friends and straight up beginner chefs like Venerly (also a Healthwatch volunteer) and I.
“A professional chef was brought in to run the session, and we were given recipe books for the dish we were making and the science behind how it helps prevent dementia.
“Venerley and I got to join in cooking, as there was an extra dish to be made, so we made sweet potato satay and tilapia – very interesting – and yummy! We then asked people to answer a couple of questions for our survey which they were more than happy to do. My favourite bit was meeting lots of new people but also trying out all the food we made.
“In the second session I knew we were doing some sort of arts, and I was looking forward to seeing the people from the last session again, as well as a lot of new faces. There was a lady known for her art and running activities at a range of places including Southampton University, she taught us about collage, the brain, and how engaging in artistic practice can benefit our memory and wellbeing.
“She led us in creating our own masterpieces from lots of different sources for our own collage and at the end we all shared what we made. Holly (Volunteer Officer) and I both joined in making our own creations, I made a landscape that unfolded to reveal different seasons and then conducted multiple interviews with participants, filling out the survey.
“My favourite part was ripping up all the different mediums to use on the collage, it was fun to ramble through and find interesting patterns as well as finding articles and pieces at the same time – plus ripping up paper let out some stress!
“Holly did not inform me as to what the third session was on, so I rocked up in a green bodycon dress – that was NOT dancing/zumba appropriate! But she had also forgotten, and wore a floaty dress, I don’t know who was more embarrassed. Our own dancing expectations were not high, but we expected a light dance and a good laugh. This session was far from that: a high energy, sweat-inducing two hours of dancing in styles such as afrobeats, salsa and Zumba.
“There were all sorts of people attending: people who know people with dementia – friends, partners, relatives, colleagues – people trying to lead a healthy life, people who love to dance and people who don’t know their left from their right! For me, that’s what made it so much fun: the diversity.
“A woman who runs Zumba classes led us through dance moves before each song and then we went through the song all together, there were six songs/different styles and at the end we did three songs back to back FULL ENERGY. My favourite part had to be dancing to ‘Me Gusta’ as it’s a song I love as well as watching people smile and laugh and hype each other up as it was heart warming seeing each other as a community.”
We thank Liv for taking part in each workshop and conducting interviews with the attendees of each session. We would also like to thank her for writing this blog, and apologise for forgetting to tell her about all the dancing and sweating. It was all in good fun!
