EDUCATE intergenerational choir took part in the Age UK Christmas Carol Concert at St Mary's Church. Lovely to see all the school children sing and perform so well. A very festive afternoon!

We were approached by BBC1 to take part in 'Our Dementia Choir Sings Again', a documentary made by Vicky McClure (actress- Line of Duty/Broadchurch/Trigger Point).

Vicky visited us with the film crew at Offerton Community Centre, where we met with our intergenerational choir with Stockport School.  We sang two songs, led by music teacher Rachel Didcote - 'Moon River' and 'Wake Up Little Susie'. We had fantastic solos from the pupils and our EDUCATE members Steve Clifford and Alan Bancroft. 

Photos can be found here: BBC1 Our Dementia Choir

EDUCATE members and Stockport school pupils took our intergenerational choir to Silverdale Care Home for a lovely Saturday afternoon. 

All enjoyed singing for the residents and catching up with former EDUCATE member Alice.

Our intergenerational choir were delighted to perform at Stockport School Community Awards. A great evening to be part of, celebrating the achievements of Stockport School pupils

In October 2022 EDUCATE were invited to the DEEP Network 10th Anniversary Event - the UK Network of dementia voices. The event was held at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, Here is EDUCATE member Steve Clifford sharing the story of EDUCATE - an audio clip can also be found by clicking here

Presented by EDUCATE and DEEP (the UK network of dementia voices) we celebrated the achievements of people living with dementia with an evening of music, dance, drama. 

We celebrated with;

- Fabulous Forgetful Friends intergenerational choir and their new film 'Unforgettable Sound of Music'

- The 'Doing Dementia Differently' intergenerational choir with EDUCATE and our friends at Stockport School.

- Together in Song gospel choir

- Liverpool's DEEP thread

- Singing for the Brain

- Dementia Diaries

On the 13th June 2019, EDUCATE celebrated its 10th Birthday with a Party at Stockport Hatworks. Old friends and new joined together for a day of fun, celebrations and memories, recorded by Paul and Tony Husband.

Photos can be found here: EDUCATE 10th Birthday party

A new training programme made with EDUCATE members, produced by Buz Loveday, won the 'Best Training Initiative' at the National Dementia Congress. The training programme has been hugely successful, used all over the country where newly recruited people into healthcare can learn about dementia from people with lived experience.

EDUCATE worked with the Dementia Engagement and Empowerment Project, Stockport CCG and Stockport Homes to design a poster for Doctors Surgeries. The poster aimed at getting help to people quickly who were worried about memory problems and can be put up in various community locations.

Anita Rolfe and Elaine Whittaker from Stockport Clinical Commissioning Group presenting a cheque to EDUCATE members to continue their support the project

On 24th May 2018, over 300 people packed into Stockport Town Hall for our annual Doing Dementia Differently event. This year our intergenerational choir was joined by the Together in Song gospel choir and members of the Dementia Diaries project told us some of their stories.  A mix of poetry, film and cheerleaders from Stockport School all made for a very successful evening.

In 2017 EDUCATE  and pupils from Stockport School set up the Doing Dementia Differently intergenerational choir. We want to show how music can help people with dementia to live well.  Here we are performing  on the marble staircase in Stockport Town Hall, for representatives from the EU's Silver Learners project. For more photographs please see Intergenerational Dementia Choir

In January 2018 EDUCATE's Jo Bennett and Claire White attended the European Foundation's Initiative on Dementia workshop in Sofia, Bulgaria.

EFID’s mission is to improve the lives of people with dementia by enabling a dementia-friendly  environment in communities across Europe. 

See more photographs from her visit: Jo in Bulgaria

In 2017 EDUCATE members and pupils from Stockport School came together to form the Intergenerational Dementia choir.  After meeting together for practices, the choir first public event was at Doing Dementia Differently at Stockport Plaza where they performed four songs together.  This was followed by an appearance at Stockport Schools 2017 Annual Achievement Evening at Stockport Town Hall and various bookings for carol singing over the Christmas period. 

For the third year running, EDUCATE took over Stockport's  historic Plaza variety theatre to celebrate the achievements of people living with dementia.

This year’s highlight was the debut performance of our Intergenerational choir. The choir draws it’s members from our experts by experience group EDUCATE, the Marple community drop in, Lisburne Court care home, and the students of  Stockport school.

There was also the usual mix of poetry, film and drama.  See videos of our evening on Youtube:

EDUCATE members took part in the testing of Mario (Managing Active and healthy aging with use of caRing servIce robots).

MARIO addresses the difficult challenges of loneliness, isolation and dementia in older persons through innovative and multi-faceted inventions delivered by service robots.   Mario has been demonstrated at meetings, and spent time with members on a one to one basis in their homes

See a report on the ongoing work in Stockort:  Mario in Stockport

EDUCATE gave financial support to In Together, a new involvement group for people living with dementia in the Wilmslow area.

EDUCATE hosted a workshop for around 70 people with dementia and their supporters.  The programme involved hearing about recent national campaigns including Dementia Words Matter and Dementia Diaries. 

This was followed by opportunities for people to join one of the discussion groups on either 'Aspirations of Younger People with Dementia' or 'Innovative Projects from Around Europe'

Thanks to the European Foundation's Initiative on Dementia, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, Stockport Council, Stockport CCG, DEEP and the Alzheimer's Society for their support with this event.

See pictures of our exhibitors: Daytime Workshop & Exhibition

This was followed by An Evening of Music, Poetry, Film and Drama

Stockport Plaza. Over 200 people came together at the Stockport Plaza for a very special evening.

Highlights included new films from EDUCATE and YoungDementiaUK, and a new play from Haylo Theatre, as well as singing and poetry reading.

See Pictures from this event:  Evening at the Plaza

May 13^th 2015, Stockport Plaza. 

Over 550 people joined our event ‘Doing Dementia Differently', an evening to celebrate EDUCATE’s 5^th birthday and the achievements of people living with dementia.

We started with 3 short films made by people with dementia, followed by a performance of ‘Over the Garden Fence’ by Haylo theatre.