The Eden Alternative is a philosophy that seeks to change the culture of today’s old age homes, long term care facilities, and other residential care settings from sterile medical institutions to human habitats – environments where residents want to live and carers enjoy working.
Eden Alternative communities encourage the continuation of residents’ personal growth rather than their decline and value what’s important to the person – like individual routines, pets, plants and other unique aspects that makes life worth living.
Through education, consultation, and outreach, The Eden Alternative offers person-directed principles and practices that support organisations in addressing the unique needs of individuals, fight loneliness, helplessness and boredom and enable well-being, longer and healthier lives – reducing the need for medical interventions and drug therapies.
Improving the lives of older people and their carers by transforming the communities in which they live and work
Tafta on Ridge, the newest member of the Eden Register in South Africa, attributes a lot of the growth and transformations in this community to a group of empowered residents. Jackie Snyman, wellness facilitator and social worker shares more about this group. “The Eden group was started about two years ago with the volunteers (residents opting to help out) at Tafta on Ridge (TOR). These volunteers helped the occupational therapy technician with different tasks in the community. The group meets once a month for about an hour. They initially received training on the Eden principles and the application of these…
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