Elysium’s Felbrigg House brings colleagues and people we support together to explore different cultures, heritages and histories. We spoke with Deputy Manager Aimee Hughes to find out more.
“When I became Deputy Manager, one of the first things I did was to look at our events programme. Felbrigg already had a great programme, but I was keen to add to it to reflect the cultures of residents and staff.
“For some of the people we support, they may not easily be able to experience some different cultures for themselves, so I felt it was important that we offer the opportunities to do so here, wherever we could.
“Throughout the year so far, we’ve marked Chinese New Year, St Patrick’s Day, St David’s Day, St George’s Day, Pride and Gypsy and Traveller Awareness Month. We see all of these as a chance for all of us – the people we support and colleagues – to learn more about different cultures and embrace them.
“While food is always an important part of these events – and popular – we try to celebrate cultures in many different ways at Felbrigg House. For example, we decorate, or do activities and arts and crafts, listen to music or dance – all different things to bring the culture to life and enhance understanding. During Gypsy and Traveller Awareness Month, for example, we embraced horses and some people went for horse riding lessons.
“Coming up, one of our colleagues is from Chile and so we will be celebrating the Chilean culture on Chile Independence Day. We will dress in national colours, decorate and enjoy food and music from Chile. What an opportunity!
“We’re already working on next year’s calendar for cultural events and we’re asking colleagues and people we support what they would like to see on there. What do people want to learn about? What do they want to do? It’s important as well as international cultures that we also embrace our British values, and so there will be all of our national Saint days and others represented too. We mark Eid, Ramadan and Hindu festivals too and aim to learn more about these celebrations.
“The aim is that everyone can take part and that they are inclusive for everyone.”