Celebrating Care on Giving Tuesday 2021

Tuesday 30 November 2021 was Giving Tuesday, an annual day of global giving. As a registered charity at the heart of our community, the De La Warr Pavilion has participated in Giving Tuesday for several years to champion and share how we harness the arts, culture and creativity to improve skills, health and wellbeing in our region.

Over the past two years, we have sought to respond increasingly directly to the needs of our community throughout all we do, working closely with partners in our neighbourhood. This extends to Giving Tuesday.

In 2021 we are celebrating the incredible work of caregivers!

DLWP is gifting half the value of all donations via the following link to Bexhill Caring Community. We want to thank everyone who has donated so far! To support the campaign and get involved, visit: www.dlwp.com/giving-tuesday.

Your donation will bring people together through care and culture.

Bexhill Caring Community are based just around the corner from DLWP, and work across the Bexhill region.

Support over 800 elderly, housebound and isolated people in our community.
Provide everything from day care to travel, form filling to handymen, and more!
Over 100 dedicated volunteers and just five staff make this possible.
They rely totally on donations from the general public, and aim to raise £1,000 this Christmas to maintain essential services.

‘The day centres are a godsend in maintaining a bit of social life and getting out and about. I am so grateful’, Linda

‘It has given me the opportunity to meet people. I always look forward to coming, and having the transport makes it easy’, Betty

Dial-A-Ride is a door to door transport service available to anyone living in the Bexhill area, regardless of age, who finds it difficult or impossible to use public transport.

BOUNCE BACK

The theme of Giving Tuesday 2021 is Bounce Back. The past eighteen months have been tough for us all. Bexhill Caring Community did an incredible job, helping nearly 400 people with appointments, medical care, shopping and more during the first year of the pandemic alone. Since restrictions have eased, they’ve relaunched vital services which bring people together, helping those they care for to ‘bounce back’ themselves, as volunteer Jennifer explains:

“Those of us who volunteer at the Day Centre all have the same aim: To bring elderly and often lonely people together. Our guests have time to talk, to play games or just to enjoy the company of others…

[After lockdown], we noticed quite a difference. Many [who attend Day Care] were quiet and introverted but over the past few weeks, we have seen a big difference in many of them. They are enjoying spending time with others… their lives are enhanced and many of them will not have had this type of interaction for many months. Even those who have had family or friends to look after them are coming out of their shells more and their confidence is growing. To see their smiling faces as they arrive at the Centre is reward in itself. We hope we can go on supporting people in this way.”

To support our campaign, please visit: www.dlwp.com/giving-tuesday.

PROJECT ART WORKS

Bexhill Caring Community are not the only incredible local organisation working with caregivers…

Sharif Persaud: Have You Ever Had, ‘self-portrait’. De La Warr Pavilion, 2021. Credit: Rob HarrisFrom 18 October 2021 – 9 January 2022, our Ground floor gallery exhibition is Sharif Persaud: Have You Ever Had. Sharif (b. 1993) is an artist based in Hastings. His practice has been developed in collaboration with Project Art Works since 2014.

Project Art Works is a collective based in Hastings working at the intersection of art and care, responding to the gifts and impacts of neurodivergence. The collective is made up of 40 neurodivergent artists, as well as artists, activists, families and carers, who work together to develop long-term supportive and creative relationships

As well as supporting neurodiverse artists, Project Art Works run the ‘Support Collective’ – a group of people with lived experience of disability, family carers, support workers, Personal Assistants and representatives from health and social care. The collective share the aim of working towards person-centred, accountable and inclusive models of support and care, and protecting the rights of people with support needs.

Kate Adams, Cosmologies of Care, 2021. Courtesy Project Art Works

It is not just us who think Project Art Works are amazing. They are currently nominated for the Turner Prize, and feature in the Turner Prize exhibition at the Herbert Gallery, Coventry. At the heart of the exhibition sits Kate Adam’s Cosmologies of Care (pictured, click to enlarge). This major new work illustrates the networks of care.

Grassroots organisations such as Bexhill Caring Community are critical to ‘cosmologies’ of care. Here at DLWP, we know that culture also plays a key role: We have provided uplifting experiences for people receiving care and those who provide it through creative activities with social care partners. These include participatory film screenings with Bexhill Dementia Action Alliance; studio events and exhibitions with Project Art Works; and hands-on workshops and supported viewings for adults receiving day or residential care.

In summer 2021, we explored the relationship between culture and cure in our Care & Citizenship programme. Follow the link to discover an online talk reflecting on and how art and cultural workers have addressed the changing landscape of care, https://www.dlwp.com/care-and-citizenship/who-cares/.

Information & Support for Carers

To find out more about Bexhill Caring Community’s incredible work, opportunities to get involved, and ways you can help them, please visit their website or Facebook.

Click here for organisations, training and help to support carers in East Sussex.

www.dlwp.com/giving-tuesday.

Read about our 2020 Giving Tuesday campaign here.

Posted by dan on Friday 3 December 2021