Project overview
Dementia Community Champions is a new volunteer initiative piloted in 2022-23 by Alzheimer’s Research UK .
The project aims to facilitate the dissemination of dementia information in communities that are under-served in terms of access to health information and research and are also at higher risk of being affected by dementia.
The aim of the first-year pilot was to recruit and train 15 people from South Asian communities in Leicester to deliver dementia and dementia research information sessions within their communities.
We joined forces with a local charity in Leicester, South Asian Health Action (SAHA), who engage with, educate and empower people on health challenges facing the South Asian community.
Volunteer training
We recruited and trained 14 volunteers over 1.5 days covering three pillars of learning:
- What is dementia.
- Dementia risk and brain health
- Taking part in research
Following the training, volunteers were tasked with running two events over six months.
Volunteer events
Eleven champions held 11 events with 1051 attendees.
Our volunteers delivered presentations in English, Gujarati and Hindi to make them more inclusive and used their local knowledge and networks to attract attendees from Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi and Middle Eastern communities to attend, with participant ages ranging from 20 – 93 years old.
Snippets of feedback from session attendees:
“I've got a diagnosis of dementia. It took years for me to talk to my husband and my children and tell them something's not right”
"I have a sister who has dementia; this information will help me support her."
‘I lost my partner two years ago during COVID. I could see the dementia signs you talked about, but my children did not want to listen to me or talk about it. I am trying to be healthier now.’
A focus of the initiative was to increase knowledge and understanding of brain health and risk factors for dementia.
Volunteers used creative and engaging methods to deliver messaging from our Think Brain Health campaign, including encouraging attendees to get up and active during their events.
Volunteers linked everyday activities, such as playing with their children, cooking, and cleaning, to the three campaign pillars (‘Love your heart’, ‘Stay sharp’ and ‘Keep connected’) to make the risk reduction information widely accessible and relatable.
Next steps
Building on insights from a successful 12-month pilot phase in Leicester. The second year pilot phase, funded by our corporate partner TP ICAP will continue to focus on South Asian communities.
We will recruit two new volunteer groups in Nottingham and Derby and continue to support existing and new volunteers in Leicester.