Nansie

More than 1.5 million Australians care for someone living with dementia, and it is the leading cause of death for women. But very little is preparing us for that. There is a disconnect between our younger generations caring for a loved one living with dementia. This film is not about blame, but rather to inspire others to support family and friends living with the disease. Through their personal journey, the two sisters hope to humanise the disease by showing quality moments with their nana. Dementia and nursing homes can be confronting and they want to give viewers tools and ideas on how they can show up in their own lives.

Across the last five years, the two girls haven’t seen any other young people in their Nana’s nursing home. Their goal is to become living proof that spending time with people suffering from a mental illness like dementia can still be rewarding, and often, beneficial for the individual caring as well. Through their experience in the film and on social media, they are giving away tools and ideas for people to use when visiting a loved one, and show that life doesn’t’ stop at the diagnosis.

Our short term outcome would be to have viewers visit a loved one after the screening. It’s very likely that everyone knows someone in care, or living alone. Medium term outcome would be to encourage programs like “schools in nursing homes”, when primary and secondary students visit on a regular basis their local nursing home. The long term outcome would be to change the vision we have of nursing homes as closed places, but having more exchanges between both worlds. Make the process a norm and less scary for younger people. By interacting with residents, these types of diseases will take longer to settle and it would be of great help for carers who often don’t have time to interact with residents after taking care of their basic needs.

On social media, we are aiming to encourage young people to not only watch the film but also to interact with the community. Nansie keeps repeating the same old NT tourism ad “You will never never know if you never never go”. Using it as our tagline in reference to going to the nursing home, we want people to tag #youllneverneverknowifyounevernevergo when they visit their loved ones. This will be the start of an online community of young carers inspiring one another through stories and connection. Through an organisation like ATOM, we want to share our documentary in schools across Australia with the option for the sisters to engage in QNAs with students, allowing them to debunk any myths and inspire intergenerational connection. With the support of Southern Cross Care we want to reach healthcare workers by organising screening events and sending links to their staff. With the support of influential people like Ita Buttrose AC OBE we are also working on broadcast opportunities.

The first step viewers can take after watching the film would be to visit their loved ones, and start a conversation with young people to encourage them to do so. Parents and teachers would be able to download our study guide to accompany them in the process. We want to encourage our social media trend #youllneverneverknowifyounevernevergo. We want to encourage teachers present during screenings to show their students the documentary.
We want to encourage health care workers to share the documentary with colleagues and families.