Silvia has been part of the project since the foundation was born in 2013. She speaks of the wonderful experience of being part of a project that is concerned that each person with chronic, advanced disease and/or at the end of life has adequate attention to all their physical, social, spiritual, emotional, love and accompaniment needs. Different initiatives of this nature were already being carried out in Europe and were studied from New Health Foundation and on which the project was based Compassionate Cities. Silvia tells us about the process and the fruits of this initiative.
What are the Compassionate Cities?
-A compassionate city is a city that revolves around the three axes of compassion: identifying the suffering of others, empathizing with it, and mobilizing to alleviate it. A compassionate city makes visible the plight of people with advanced and end-of-life illnesses, empowers itself to have resources to care for people, and mobilizes the entire community to care for people in that situation.
A compassionate city involves all citizens in the care and accompaniment of people at the end of life, in the dignified, humane and compassionate treatment, and provokes a change in the way we look and act with these people. It involves schools, colleges, universities, companies, leisure centers, hospitals, health centers, municipalities, etc., putting the person at the center to meet all their physical, emotional, social, spiritual and spiritual needs and love and accompaniment.
Why did this initiative arise?
-The movement was driven by the International Society for Public Health and Palliative Care (PHPCI), which defined the characteristics of a compassionate city around these people with advanced disease and end of life. The New Health FoundationAfter reviewing models in the literature and from various organizations that had already been promoting these cities, the company developed its own method (All With You) for the development of compassionate cities and communities that began to be implemented in 2015 in the city of Seville, Spain, with the aim that it could be replicated in other geographical areas.
This method brings together the components of awareness-raising, social empowerment and community intervention, which is when we mobilize to meet with those people who are in a situation of advanced disease, and create community support networks around them.
What have compassionate cities served or are serving for?
-To truly alleviate suffering at the moment of greatest vulnerability in the life of human beings, which is when we have to face the fact that we are going to die. We are unique and we can live with intensity and quality of life until the last day of our life. People should not die in loneliness or poorly cared for or with pain or emotional suffering. We have the opportunity to change the way we look at death, because it is death that teaches us about life. We have many resources to make this transition the best possible, we learn from each experience, and in each of us there is that compassion that allows us to approach the other person and do something to alleviate their suffering. And more and more initiatives are appearing that are committed to truly dignify life until the end.
The word compassion It is not well understood... That is why we had the opportunity with this project to explain it almost every day. It still sounds like condescension, weakness or fragility, pity or pity, and in this age in which material utility conditions any action, it is much less understood. Our societies prefer not to see, as if not seeing would avoid the incontestable fact that we are all going to die and that the people we love are going to die. Living with our backs turned to death will not make death go away, it will only make the road much more difficult. Compassion is the way out and the solution because caring is a true privilege when we turn it into love for others. In the New Health Foundationthanks to the development and promotion of Compassionate Communities and Cities That is what we achieve: to move the entire community around the person with advanced disease and end of life to meet their needs.
Our aim is to make society aware that each person is important and that much can be contributed in their last moments. Every action that is done is an action that remains forever, because it is an act of kindness, love and compassion. And it changes the way we understand life.
What actions are carried out, and where?
-The project has three types of actions, and they always revolve around triple C: Care, Compassion y Community. Firstly, awareness-raising -where we raise awareness of what palliative care is, how to access it, why to access it, the importance of care, the needs of people with advanced illness, the strength of the community, compassion, etc. -. Secondly, training: we hold workshops for family members, volunteers, professionals, young people, the elderly and the general public on techniques for accompaniment and care, community networks, communication and emotional management skills, coping with death and grief and, in general, all the aspects that need to be known in order to alleviate the suffering of people in this situation.
And, thirdly, we carry out community intervention actions where we make available to family members and people in this situation of advanced disease the figure of the "community promoter" who detects the needs and articulates the community networks (with family members, neighbors, associations, volunteers, etc.) to meet these needs and that the person and his/her main caregiver receive all this care and accompaniment.
The service is free of charge for all participants, as are the awareness-raising and training activities that take place in different parts of the city in order to involve as many people as possible. As for the people in this situation, they are referred to the program by various means: professionals from health centers and palliative care professionals, social workers from the city council, organizations and centers that care for people in this situation, or sometimes even from the community itself. There are many people and entities involved in this project, it is thanks to them that the project grows and manages to reach a little further every day. Thanks to the cohesion of all these actors, we are building compassionate cities, cities that care and change lives.
The more people and institutions involved, the better. Everyone has something to contribute. This is a project of cooperation, coordination, motivation and heart. In the cities there are already many resources to help people, many people who want to do something for others, and associations that get involved, but in many cases they are not well connected. For this reason, from the Foundation and the All With YouWe create a network of all these agents to ensure that each person with advanced disease or end of life receives comprehensive, compassionate and high quality care.
The proposal of Compassionate Communities and Cities of the New Health Foundation has been implemented in cities of different sizes in Spain and Latin America with optimal results in all experiences. All these initiatives are made visible on a map of cities on the web site www.todoscontigo.org from where it is intended to publicize the momentum that the force of compassion is taking in each of these communities and cities.
Who is this project aimed at?
-To anyone who wants to improve their life from compassion, who is willing to help others, who wants to live with intensity every day of their life and who wants to be prepared to take care of their loved ones when they are in this situation.
It is a project that reaches everyone, because we are all going to live this experience of caring and being cared for.
Who is in charge of managing it?
-In Seville, it is managed by New Health FoundationHowever, the Foundation is also supporting other entities for the implementation in other cities. We are talking about companies in the health sector (insurance companies and hospitals), public institutions (city councils, councils, etc.), private or third sector organizations in the health, social or community sectors (associations, foundations, residential centers, companies providing care services, volunteer organizations, etc.), professional associations, scientific societies, and companies in the city that want to support the project through their Corporate Social Responsibility.
Thus, in each city where the project is underway, it is managed by a different promoter entity together with the New Health Foundation. Our hope is that it will spread more and more and that it will be implemented in many cities.
What stories have you encountered in the development of the project?
-There are many stories that emerge every day and each one of them is full of life and hope. As an example, last December we launched, within the framework of the project, the book 20 Stories of CompassionThe book, in which stories are narrated with real testimonies of people who have participated in Seville With YouThe stories are based on experiences about the power of compassion at the end of life. For this motivating bet, the New Health Foundation was honored to have the support and collaboration of the City Council of Seville and of the Andalusian Health Serviceas well as all the people who provided their testimonies. The interesting repercussion of this issue is now extended with the launching of a traveling exhibition of the same name that will be shown in places in Seville during 2019.
The stories we meet are everyday and it fills us with joy to see how with very little, a lot is done. These stories highlight the value of people's lives to the end. Stories like the one Johnatan shares with us about his experience as a volunteer: "I am very happy to see how much is done with very little.Saying goodbye a you love deeply is a way to give value to the time that has remained in your life. yourlife, each person who is by your side is a contribution. To be at the end of the one you love is a contribution. a privilege, sad, hard, difficult, but always a privilege". Or Amparo about her son Jesús and how his friends were with him until the end: "I am very proud of him.Those boys learned to laugh in the hospital, to be blood donors, to give company during long afternoons at home when their strength was failing. Jesus and his friends knew what honor, dignity, commitment, responsibility, respect and, of course, friendship meant. They were brothers chosen in a moment in life".
The people and experiences we meet every day teach us that it is possible to talk about death, that we have the strength to help others. The project is really simple, it is just that, to connect: needs with help, people with people, life with life. That is the community we want to build, the one we want to live in until our last day. The power of compassion is very great, together we protect each other, together we take care of each other, together we live together.
On a personal level, what does it mean to you to be part of a project like this?
-Living it professionally and personally has been and continues to be a wonderful experience because you receive a response from the society that wants to care, to accompany, that wants to know, that has needs and is looking for answers.
The return of this project day by day is to see that it is possible. To see day by day that there are people willing to help, that the greatest satisfaction perceived is that of helping others, that children and young people are the answer to this change, and that all this improves the care, quality of life and satisfaction of family members and networks. Moreover, it is an innovative project, adapted to each community, to each city. In promoting it we saw that it was necessary to know in depth how to do it, I even encouraged myself to develop my doctoral thesis on the development of compassionate communities and it is being a whole experience of knowledge and reality.
We imagined it, we got excited and we decided to do it. When you are passionate about a project like this, you don't get confused. You know you are on the right path. And my greatest satisfaction is to see the response from society and from those who are making it possible day by day. n
