Das Nähkästchen

Motivation

In the ancient societies there were no old homes. Old age had a functional role in the family and the society. The experiences, memories were transmitted from mouth to mouth or heart to heart from the older members to the younger members of the society.

In this kind of transmission, knowledge was probably just more than a simple ‘data’.

 We have come to a stage of development when the older members of the society are being segregated and pushed on to the ‘fringes’. In their golden days these senior citizens probably have lived their life to the fullest. They explored , discovered, created art, raised a family, fought against the harsh realities, sacrificed… they are probably a huge reservoir of stories that shall inspire us and give us new perspective on our day to day life.

 The generation that grew up with computers and lately internet and web 2.0 are storing their memories in the giant collective memory, which stores them (memories) for the posterity. But what about the generation, that grew old before the advent of these technologies and never had the chance to grasp it fully? Are not these fast changing technologies alienating a whole generation of people from the mainstream society?

 During the first phase of the project we shall work with and a group of volunteers/students and 10 residents of Laetitia Pflegeheime ‘Haus Treffen-Seespitz’ situated in Treffen. The volunteers shall visit the old home every week end with some ‘gifts’.

What are these gifts?

 Every member of the old home probably at some point of their day wants to listen to a particular song that they heard 40 years back or wants to see a particular film which they can remember partially, or want to read one article from a magazine that they could not finish…

During the weeks we shall collect the requests from the senior citizens via a hotline/dropbox placed in the old home, we shall try to find out the requested songs, films, articles from the internet (youtube, vimeo, itunes) and also from the government and the private archives. During the week ends the volunteers shall carry these films or songs along with them and present these to the residents of that old home and help them enjoy the films, songs…

How to do it:

 To address these issues we shall start a pilot project in Laetitia Pflegeheime ‘Haus Treffen-Seespitz’. The pilot project shall have duration of three months. We would like to accomplish the following tasks during this phase of the project:

Establishing Contacts and Communication

During the first phase of the projects we would start talking to 10 residents of Laetitia Pflegeheim ‘Haus Treffen-Seespitz’. While building personal relationships with the residents, we would like to understand how varied their wishes are regarding old films, music or magazines.

We would also try to understand, how would they like to communicate and place their wishes to us, as an example, via telephone or writing letters and putting it in a drop box inside the old home or something else…

We would also incorporate the management of the old home in this project as one of our collaborators.

For archival materials (old newspaper/ magazine article, photographs) we shall start establishing contacts with Landesarchiv Kärnten, Kleine Zeitung, ÖRF and local galleries and museums.

Establishing ‘Search’ and ‘Send’ group (Volunteers)

Volunteers are core of this pilot project. They shall collect the wish list, search the materials in the internet or in the archives and then provide it to the residents of the old home.

According to their availability they can either participate in the ‘search’ activity, which includes browsing the internet/archives/newspapers for the requested songs, films, photographs and putting them in a common folder (dropbox).

The ‘send’ activity means, every weekend according to their (volunteers) time and availability they shall visit the old home with the collected materials and show it to the residents. We are planning for 4 hours session every Saturday during these 3 months.

During their interaction with the senior citizens, they would record the personal memories/stories related to the particular objects that the residents requested for and upload it directly to the ‘memory website’ by using a specially designed app.

Designing the Website and the Apps

The website is the repository where all the requested materials shall be stored along with the stories related to them. The website shall act as a memory archive for the senior citizens, which stores and showcase their precious memories and stories related to that particular memory.

The website would also act as a useful tool to fight against dementia that is prevalent among the residents of the old homes.

A mobile app shall be designed which would make uploading of the recorded stories and the memory objects to the website easy. This app can be downloaded free of cost and volunteers can use it to upload the memories.

Next steps and project scalability

The website/memory archive and the apps developed during this pilot phase can be used in the future by any organizations i.e. old homes, schools, universities inside EU, to organize volunteers and upload the memories in the designed website/memory archive by simple acknowledgement.

Responsible Person/Association:

Gulmohor Carnival Association

Gulmohor Carnival Association, based in Villach, is a platform of scientists/artists/activists originating from South Asia mainly working with projects related to migration, social integration, compassionate economy and delves deeper to experience and question the human cost and benefit of automation. Here is one Kleine Zeitung article regarding our activities during last summer: 

<link http: dataclip.mmo.at clippings kunden mmo_k3_kurzfilmfestival mmo_k3_kurzfilmfestival_a001402_20150904_1_326144134595464288264.pdf>Kunst als Schlüssel zur Toleranz

Team Members

Name: Syed Hadiuzzaman

Description: Syed Hadiuzzaman, based in Villach, is currently working for a multinational technology company. He is one of the co-founders of Gulmohor Carnival Association. Apart from his professional activities, he is interested in writing, film making and organizing events/projects that can bring positive changes in the society.

He would be coordinating this project, as the representative of the Gulmohor Carnival Association.

Name: Farhana Huq

Description: An environmental scientist based in Oslo, Norway, Farhana Huq is interested in building a support network that would help women from different cultures/languages finding the right kind of support during their critical times in a foreign culture/country .

She would look after the administrative and strategic parts of the project.

Name: Pranjal Selim

Description: A computer programmer and photographer, Pranjal Selim likes to design websites that are really challenging to code. He would help Gulmohor designing the apps and website for this project.