Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
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Leeds Beckett researchers to help tackle dementia, depression and loneliness
Working with The Sporting Memories Foundation, the researchers will support a project to digitise a collection of 90,000 iconic sporting images, given to the foundation by Reuters, the world's largest international multimedia news provider. The collection contains a remarkable treasure trove of photography of sport’s greatest heroes and most illustrious moments stretching back to the 1930s. The Action Images picture library collection contains negatives, covering football, rugby, boxing, tennis, athletics and many other sports.
Incredible collection of pictures of Pele discovered as 90,000 images donated to defeat dementia https://t.co/WIfHZO4hwD #MondayMotivaton pic.twitter.com/XQcjISSHt4
— Sporting Memories (@SportsMemNet) August 14, 2017
The collection will be digitised as part of The Sporting Memories Foundation award-winning projects across the UK which bring older sports fans together to help deliver the initiative and play a part in tackling dementia, depression and loneliness. Historians and researchers at Leeds Beckett will help manage the project, alongside researchers from the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University and Stirling University.
As part of the Foundation’s innovative programme to tackle loneliness and isolation, volunteers will be recruited to help with the task of cataloguing and scanning the collection. Sports fans of all ages will be encouraged to get together and team up at local hubs, with each image needing to be cleaned, scanned, tagged and added to the online archive. Each of these images will in turn be used in The Sporting Memories Foundation’s work in supporting older people across communities.
Pls RT- Sign up & help us reach 1,000's more older people who would enjoy recalling their greatest #sportingmemories https://t.co/BtMlaSiJzu pic.twitter.com/delz8mKStH
— Sporting Memories (@SportsMemNet) August 12, 2017
Using images of sport and memorabilia, older people can stay connected to their friends and communities, be cognitively stimulated and remain physically active. The volunteer-led, intergenerational Sporting Memories groups help people over the age of 50 age well and remain as healthy as possible. The Sporting Memories Foundation has received support from sports stars and celebrities along with numerous sporting bodies including the FA, Premier League, PFA, England Rugby and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
The Sporting Memories Foundation is an award-winning charity that supports older people living with dementia, depression and loneliness by engaging them in social activities and helping them to recall memories of watching or playing sport.
For more information please visit http://www.sportingmemoriesnetwork.com