For Sr. Valérie Kaboré, Hydra Parmentier, Algeria, collaboration takes the form of mutual aid, solidarity, partnership…
I would like to share with you my experience at a day care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related illnesses and their family caregivers. It is a work of the Archdiocese of Algiers which began in 2015.
I joined the team in June 2019 and have taken charge of its coordination since 2020.
It is the only center of its kind in all of Algeria.
The small team is made up of a cook, a speech therapist, a psychologist and three social care assistants. We welcome sick people, members of their families and occasional volunteers during the day. We also open our doors to interns, psychomotor therapists or speech therapists and everyone else.
Finally, we have a partnership with health professionals such as doctors (geriatrician-neurologist-psychiatrist), physiotherapists, associations, professionals from other professions (lawyers, formators in various fields, traders) and members of the Church. Accompaniment for the elderly and those at the end of life is one of those peripheries of our world that we do not speak about enough because it cannot be considered in terms of profit.
Collaboration as a team
We form a multidisciplinary team that welcomes and accompanies affected people on a daily basis. It all starts at the time of recruitment. The help of the human resources manager and other members of the team is essential for this discernment!
It is essential to clarify the values (integrity, sense of others, compassion, humanism, etc.) and skills necessary for this work (basic training in the “Care” professions, sufficient autonomy, self-sacrifice, ability to work as a team…).
We have also given ourselves a framework for weekly introspection during which we reread our practices and the situations we experience. It is a space of truth, of vulnerability where failure becomes a learning opportunity and where we consolidate our capacity for resilience.
We also continue regular professional training with the above-mentioned competent people. In this context, collaborating comes down to questioning oneself and allowing oneself to be questioned regularly! Is this not also the dialogue of life and of the works? For the reception and accompaniment of patients, collaboration calls on us in our capacity to enter into relationships with others. It involves choosing to step outside of oneself, to create mutual trust, to experience deep respect for the person in their particular situation and to be authentic.
In Alzheimer’s disease, several abilities are gradually lost but the emotional memory remains until the final stage of the pathology. To maintain social bonds, we rely on the principles of “humanitude”1). Our accompaniment based on so-called relational therapies makes it possible to reduce the use of neuroleptic medications. This improves the quality of life of the affected person; collaborating ultimately means becoming human on a daily basis!
This resonates well with the quote from Térence that our founder Cardinal Lavigerie adopted: “I am human, and nothing that is human is foreign to me”.
Collaboration with family members
The second level of collaboration is that of accompanying family members. We experience it from the first contact. They often arrive exhausted by the long journey to find out what their loved one is suffering from and by the denial faced with pathologies (Alzheimer’s and related illnesses) which make the person unrecognizable.
We experience collaboration through welcome, compassionate listening, formation, meeting families or the “carers’ café”.
We seek to help family members to accept the patient in his/her development, to maintain family and social ties and to live in solidarity with other families. Thanks to this internal network, we organized a relaxing bus outing on May 1, for around thirty people, to an educational farm. A family that we accompanied two years ago offered to pay for the bus and the driver, the farm manager welcomed us for free and everyone brought something to share.
Together, we say no to discrimination and rejection of vulnerable people due to these neurodegenerative diseases.
Collaboration with other associations, volunteers and other church members
Finally, the last level of collaboration concerns relationships with other associations, volunteers and other Church members. The impact of neurodegenerative pathologies on the life of the sick person and on the family is so great that only a multilateral partnership can help to mitigate their harm and promote a better quality of life.
This is how we cultivate a garden that beautifies the living environment and serves as a space for patients to wander around. We also host bee hives there, which reminds us of Laudato Si! These hives belong to young professional Algerian beekeepers.
In collaboration, we create a greater number of solutions and achieve more holistic accompaniment.
The presence of other Church members in the animation of the center testifies to ecclesial communion and the radical choice of our small Church to be alongside the most fragile people. Our conviviality, formation and awareness activities bring different people together.
Creating a family atmosphere is part of my role as activity coordinator.
I am carried by these words:
Micah 6:8 “He has showed you, O Man what is good. What does the Lord require of you? only this: To do justice, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Cardinal Lavigerie: “I have become all things to all people because I said to the God of all, I am all yours.”
Mother Marie Salomé: “the Spirit of family: – loving and helping one another.”
And by the very name of the House “Dar El Ikram” which means “House of generosity”
In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude to each person I met in the exercise of this apostolate. Every day is a lesson in humility, in self-sacrifice to the end and in creativity in the service of life.
Collaborating at “Dar El Ikram” is a Lifestyle!
- “Humanitude” is interested in the links that allow humans to meet regardless of their state or status. The Humanitude methodology allows for care by prioritizing the bond between the caregiver and the elderly person.
