SHACKLES FOR MEMORY: PRISON, ALZHEIMER AND READING AT THE FOOT OF THE CLASSROOM IN PRIMARY (Atena Editora)

Abstract

In this project, which resulted in the National Service-Learning Award in 2019 in the Human Rights/Elderly Persons modality, fifth-year Primary students provided a first human and academic service to the fifteen people deprived of their liberty who were part of the Reincorpora program of La Caixa. They opened the doors of the classroom to spend time together and promote Literature. To this end, they held different literary gatherings, with stories on the Alzheimer's theme, and round tables on life experiences, both of the inmates and of other participating people (elite athletes, the elderly, priests...). They also improved the reception floors of the Alicante Penitentiary Pastoral, with libraries of "collected" books, to encourage reading by all the people and families who use them on their temporary releases from prison. Later, as a second service, and together with the members of the Reincorpora project, the students held a solidarity day for the elderly of the Cocentaina Association of Relatives and Friends of Alzheimer's Patients, to whom they prepared a lunch, told stories, poetry, board games, and even recreated a town square to perform dances from the time of the elderly. Shackles for the memory was intended to be a space for inter-social and intergenerational collaboration in which schoolchildren participated in the work of reintegration and all together cooperated to improve the quality of life of the elderly with Alzheimer's disease. The values that were pursued circulated in both directions, they were many and very necessary, and above all it was possible to transmit a real, exemplary and human message to the whole of society, in defense of the dignity of all people.