Creative thinking: craft cafe proves a vital social network for older people

The desire for a housing association to interact more with their elderly tenants has led to a lot of work done by hand and friendship

Hugh Fox picks up a piece of chalk and rub it on paper before him. He works from memory, a landscape that I knew as a child.

"I have always loved art," says 69-years. "I won a contest as a child and was painting in an art gallery. Later, he worked as a janitor at the school and to school at night, after it has been used to paint, and teachers have used to steal ".

These days, Fox can paint and draw on your heart's content in the Craft Café, a community enterprise in vibrant Glasgow Castlemilk. Set up to fight against social isolation among the elderly residents Castlemilk, the initiative has proved so effective that the staff that local GP practices routinely refer to elderly patients in the cafeteria, and established a sister project in Govan as a therapeutic approach for long-term illnesses.

organizers now want to partner with a professional gallery space to create a formal presentation of the participants.

Led by the Community Impact Arts Society of Arts, Art Café Cassiltoun is funded by Housing Association. Anyone over 50 can fall into the cafe, located in a former stable, and try anything, from drawing and painting, knitting, sewing, card making, painting silk, sculpture and jewelry. The walls are full of recent work, others are leaning against the cabinets. A large table in the center of the room is full of men and women, head bowed silver, chatting and laughing.

According to Friends of Charity of the elderly, over a million older people live isolated lives and only in the UK and one in five older seeing other people at least once per week.

In Glasgow, about 40,000 the number of elderly people living alone. Providing informal support and artistic, if necessary, the staff of the Art Café say the benefits have been remarkable. Participants, who say a report greater mobility and dexterity, improve mental health, depression, reduced, reduced consumption of alcohol and snuff, and extend social networks.

• "If it's not here, I do not know what we would do," says Margaret Millmaker, 65, who comes to the cafe with her husband. Both are disabled, and the coffee brought a new object and new circle of friends.

"We are all very supportive of us," said Millmaker. "If someone is sick or depressed, trying one after another. And I never thought I could draw or paint something, but they are very patient with us. I did a lot of scenes and have recently started to make faces. I take. "

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McFadyen, public art coordinator Impact Arts, says the project was driven by Cassiltoun housing association, which has been seeking ways to interact with the elderly. "It's a creative solution for the isolation and loneliness among the elderly in a local area. The housing association identified the need to engage with the former tenants and offered the art room, "she said.

"While it is a really creative project on the social network you created. Now, neighbors who knew each other support each other. He became larger than the own project."

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