The Bishop of Wakefield is urging people to join hands around Wakefield Cathedral to show they are “United against Dementia”
The action is part of the Bishop of Wakefield’s on-going campaign to tackle the stigma and lack of understanding around dementia by promoting Dementia Friends across all the churches in the towns of Pontefract, Barnsley and the city of Wakefield.
Bishop Tony Robinson has first hand experience of the disease in his own family and has asked all organisations working to be dementia friendly to link hands round the Cathedral on Wed 17 May at 1pm as part of the the latest national campaign by the Alzheimers Society for Dementia Awareness Week.
On the day there will be a quiet area inside the cathedral for anyone wanting to light a candle for those and their families living with the disease and there will be display stands to promote awareness by different partner agencies and a Dementia Friends Awareness Session in one of the side chapels for anyone who wants to attend.
The event will run from 1 to 3pm.
Said Bishop Tony: “We will be joining hands around Wakefield Cathedral on Wednesday 17th May as a sign that as a Church we are doing our best in this area to make our churches dementia friendly and take seriously our care for those suffering from this debilitating disease.
“I know from personal experience at the present time how my own mother-in-law is increasingly in need of constant care and help,” he said.
The event in Wakefield is part of the on-going dementia awareness strategy across the churches which has seen joint presentations by the Alzheimers Society and local vicar, the Revd Kevin Greaves, vicar of Chapelthorpe who while in the Castleford Team Parish two years ago worked alongside UK’s largest Christian disability charity – to become the first Dementia friendly church team in the Episcopal Area.
Find out what other churches are planning here