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For my tzedakah project for my Bar Mitzvah I have been helping with a project called PlayList for Life. This is a charity that uses the power of music to help people with dementia by selecting a personalised selection of music to keep the person connected to themselves and their loved ones. You can volunteer as a sort of music detective selecting songs that are important to that person and creating a playlist on a specially designed app that is linked to Spotify. The playlist can then be played to the person at any time and often brings back feelings and memories and can have a calming effect or make them smile. I watched videos on YouTube of people with dementia who have largely lost their powers of speech but then miraculously sing the lyrics of an entire song that is played to them.

To work on PlayList I went to Nightingale and I did some online training. My dad and I talked to a resident and investigated songs that she liked from when she was young and put them onto a playlist. In fact, she didn’t have dementia but it was still a great thing to do and we are working on a list of about 45, including Vera Lynn, Somewhere over the Rainbow and My Yiddishe Momme. We also got suggestions from her family and from Chris who leads the project.

As part of my project I also played a piano concert for the residents in their lounge on the ward one Sunday afternoon. For one of my pieces, I learnt Hava Nagila as I thought they would all know it and it was great when they started clapping along and one or two even got up to dance. We then had tea and cake.

I would also like to raise some money to help buy more equipment such as CD players and Ipods so more residents at Nightingale can benefit from the programme.

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