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The
Eden Alternative
http://www.eden-alternative.co.uk
The Eden
Alternative is a not-for-profit organisation
dedicated to improving the experience of aging and
disability around the world. It is a powerful tool
for improving the quality of life and for
recapturing a meaningful work life.
The Eden Alternative shows us how the
opportunity to give meaningful care to other living
things, animals and plants, and the variety and
spontaneity that mark an enlivened environment can
succeed where pills and therapies fail.
It’s better to
live in a garden…
Our Mission:
Improving the lives of the Elderly and their Carers
by transforming the communities in which they live
and work
Our Vision:
The
elimination of Loneliness, Helplessness and Boredom
Our Motto:
It can be
different
The Eden Alternative Principles
1. The three
plagues of loneliness, helplessness and boredom
account for the bulk of suffering among our
Elders.
2. An
Elder-centred community commits to creating a
Human Habitat where life revolves around close
and continuing contact with plants, animals and
children. It is these relationships that provide
the young and old alike with a pathway to a life
worth living.
3. Loving
companionship is the antidote to loneliness.
Elders deserve easy access to human and animal
companionship.
4. An
Elder-centred community creates opportunity to
give as well as receive care. This is the
antidote to helplessness.
5. An
Elder-centred community imbues daily life with
variety and spontaneity by creating an
environment in which unexpected and
unpredictable interactions and happenings can
take place. This is the antidote to boredom.
6.
Meaningless activity corrodes the human spirit.
The opportunity to do things that we find
meaningful is essential to human health.
7. Medical
treatment should be the servant of genuine human
caring, never its master.
8. An
Elder-centred community honours its Elders by
de-emphasizing top-down bureaucratic authority,
seeking instead to place the maximum possible
decision-making authority into the hands of the
Elders or into the hands of those closest to
them.
9. Creating
an Elder-centred community is a never-ending
process. Human growth must never be separated
from human life.
10. Wise
leadership is the lifeblood of any struggle
against the three plagues. For it, there can be
no substitute.
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