Caifé Corcra: Intergenerational Lessons from a Student-Run Memory Caifé

With the support of the CMNHS Age-Friendly Funding call, members of the School of Medicine (Maria Costello) and School of Health Sciences (Mary Rose Mulry, Laura Loftus) came together to pilot the Caifé Corcra. This pilot initiative was a student-led memory café to support older adults affected by memory loss and their caregivers living in the community surrounding the university of Galway.
This funding enabled students to be trained in cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) and allowed them to develop a six-week programme of themed activities aiming to provide stimulation for thinking, concentration and memory. Carers were encouraged to attend for informative talks and peer support.  This funding also supplied materials for cognitive stimulation therapy, environmental furnishings to create a café like environment and food and beverages.
This café took place within Aras Moyola on Tuesday evenings across February and March 2024. Feedback from the project was positive from both attendees and students alike. This initiative filled a gap for carer support networking and this was an unexpected benefit of the project.
This pilot project was successful in meeting several of the age- friendly university principles. It allowed for engagement of older adults with our students providing with real life immersive learning on dementia. This initiative inherently promoted intergenerational interaction, as students and older adults shared knowledge, stories, and skills, fostering mutual learning and understanding. This is an opportunity further integrate the university with our older adults, and allow them to facilitate novel learning opportunities for our future healthcare workforce. Additionally, this environment can be a source of qualitative data and provide insights for university research on aging, memory, and cognitive health, thereby informing and shaping research agendas.