Just a quick update to say I added some new features to the blog. You can now subscribe via wordpress or email, you can follow us with the RSS feed too.

Also on the Contact Us page you can send through any notes or comments you have on the project, including if you would like to be involved in the project or if you would like to volunteer to help the project. Anyway about it, feel free to drop us a note.

I have had the luck of living with all of my four grandparents alive. They are a source of inspiration, love and knowledge that have positively effected my life since I was born and I know how lucky I am to have that.

Recently my grandparents have been showing their age a little more. My Nanny (my mum’s mum) is a gorgeous women with a sharp whit and a good dose of Welsh humor, but recently has been not so much on her game. She avoids things like cooking because it relies too heavily on her memory. She misplaces things that she has put down just moments earlier and generally lacks the sharpness that I have known her to have and have taken from her over the years.

My Mum said recently that Nanny had the on set signs of Dementia and that she needed to be mentally and intellectually engaged. She also said that doing things with her mind would help bring some of that sharpness back. I thought about this a fair bit and I thought how it would be nicer and I think, more effective if this “intellectual activity” was a little more important or personal than just doing sudoku puzzles.

My grandfather (on my fathers side) is a very quiet man. He has recently become very sickly and now struggles to walk or even eat. He avoids the doctor though at this stage in his life its really the last thing that he needs to be doing. He was a pilot during WWII but he has never talked to any of us about it at all, which bothers me.

I was bothered by this after visiting my grandfather about two weeks ago. He looked very thin and fragile, he didn’t sit up or move around at all for the whole two or three hours we were at his house and he hardly ate. It was hard to see, but what struck me at the time was a single thought.

What about all his memories an thoughts? What about all the stories from his youth that I’ll never hear? Where can I keep and share the amazing life that my grandfather has lived? And how can I help my grandfather enjoy what he has left when he is so immobile and so limited?

It seemed like I was bound to loose these amazing stories. And I thought that this must happen everyday. Sickly older folk are estranged in nursing homes, with no connection to society with very limited ability to connect to people outside these homes or outside their network of care. How could I help these older folks escape their confines and share their knowledge, their stories with the world around them?

This is why I have started projectblogwise. I want to enable ailing older folk to socialize with the largest networks in the world. I want them to share their life experiences and openly tell the stories they have, share their passions. And what better place to do this, but through blogs.

But where do I start? How can I get reach of these people and what do I teach them? Once I’ve taught them, how do I insure that they will become connected and as many people as possible get to share this great wealth of wisdom.