Volunteer Spotlight: Shamayal Syed

Shamayal recently took a course at the University of Toronto called HMB440, dementia, taught by Dr. Franco Taverna. Her involvement in research in dementia really sparked her interest in the field, motivating her to take this course to learn more about the disease and how it affects individuals...

For the community engagement portion of the course, she participated in Companion Calls at the O’Neill Centre and chatted with a resident on a weekly basis, getting to know their life story. At the end of term, she created a “Life History Project” for the resident, which displayed all of the wonderful memories the resident shared with her in a visual form. Shamayal will continue to participate in Companion Calls at the O’Neill Centre this summer, showing that she is determined to improve the social well-being of residents in long-term care, particularly during the pandemic. Additionally, Shamayal will be volunteering with the social media department with SAGE, using her graphic design and communication skills to share our mission to empower seniors with the community. We thank Shamayal for keeping our seniors connected during the pandemic and for supporting healthcare workers.