The Project:
Znaniye Foundation worked to unite generations in the community during this abnormal festive period, by working with children and youth in our community to create and deliver handmade Christmas/Holiday cards to local care homes. Elderly people have been incredibly isolated throughout the pandemic, and our project is aiming to find a way to tackle that isolation in a COVID secure way and to connect two generations and different communities. Even though this project is mainly aimed at children and youth, we urged people of all ages to create cards, as at this unprecedented time we need to all come together.
After speaking directly with local care homes about the project, 6 local homes were settled on to receive cards.
Care Homes to Choose From:
- Ealing Manor, Nursing Home
- Kent Lodge, Care Home
- The Meadows Residential Care Home
- Right At Home, Assisted Living Home
- Manor Court, Care Home
- St. Davids Home, Care Home
Christmas Drop Off:
Due to Covid-19, we made sure to have plenty of safe options for students to submit their cards for the project, for us to them safely and securely drop off. However, we wanted to ensure to bring some festive joy to our local children in some way. With so many events cancelled, but students haven't had such a year - we worked to find a way to still make this happen. Working with our Volunteers, we set up a station at Santa's London Workshop (with a lot of help from an incredibly kind local family and one our main co-ordinators ...) for students to drop off their cards, or even write some if they didn't have materials, whilst also meeting Santa, his elves and Rudolph and receiving little gift.
Take a look here at some photos of the incredible afternoon.
Workshops:
To encourage Christmas spirit and and fill children with the festive feeling, we also ran a FREE, Covid Prepared, In-Person Christmas Crafts Workshop on Saturday 19th December for Ages 3-12! We had materials available and set out for children to create their own festive Christmas decorations for their home, a family member or a friend! Students were able to also meet Santa safely, receive a present, and finally spend a day together after the second London Lockdown, and before new year.
Not only did the students make angels, gingerbread men and decorations, but we also collect over 50 more cards for care homes to deliver.
