Shannon Azzopardi

Diversional Therapy Coordinator

The Garrawarra Centre

"I provide meaningful leisure activities for our residents at Garrawarra. Their dementia diagnosis minimises their ability to initiate hobbies or interests they enjoy doing.

Our yarn bombing project came from a group of residents, who enjoyed knitting, but their skills had declined and they weren’t able to follow those beautiful big patterns.  We started to accumulate a pile of little bits and pieces. The trees had all lost their leaves, and we thought ‘let’s use all these pieces to transform our backyard’.

The residents really got involved. We found other residents would join our knitting circle. It was really nice quiet time for them to sit and listen to conversations and hold wool. We were expecting it would last for about 4 weeks before the residents would start to pull it down, but I think they just love the colour, brightness and its feel. You see them touching it sometimes when they’re walking around. It was a really beautiful project.

The team won an Arts in Health Improvement and Innovation Award.  It was very exciting, bringing it back and sharing with all the staff. It showed everybody’s contribution made such a significant impact that was recognised across the district.”