This is a collaborative project between the VAC and Dark Horse Venture. Older people living in the community may feel like a forgotten sector of the wider community as a whole. These older people hold an important key to unlocking our communitys’ past and this information must be recorded as it could be lost forever.

The purpose of the project is to bring the older people of the area together in a social setting to record their individual experiences on a range of topics such as local history, yarns and fables etc. through the medium of storytelling and reminiscence work.

The Verbal Arts Centre had previously published a book in cooperation with North and West Housing Ltd called Rough Water, Well Water; memoirs from Derry and the North West.

VAC Publications >>
Archives: Launch of Rough Water, Well Water >>

Project Goals:

1. The first goal that needs to be achieved is to promote positive mental and physical health among older people. Research shows that reminiscence work has become valued and can be further used for educational and recreational purposes as well as for social and therapeutic purposes.

2. The second goal is to develop new social networks particularly for those who are in residential housing and those who have less opportunity to meet new people of all ages.

3. The third goal is to provide older people in the locality with a process to record their histories in a manner that will be accessible to other community groups in the future.

The stories gathered during these sessions will be availible for access soon once project has been completed.