Twice a month the drums are beaten at Groenzorg Norg and the people from the day care center happily drum away.
“We’re going to play a lot of drums together,” explains accompanist Gerard Meijering of Groenzorg Norg. “This is an exercise that is very important for people with disabilities, to slow down the disease they have. We can achieve this, especially by being active.”
The people who come to Groenzorg for day care, or day experience as they call it, have various conditions. Parkinson’s, dementia, MS, COPD, non-congenital brain defects are examples of this.
Songs such as ‘Guardian Angel’ by Marco Schuitmaker, ‘You can’t get that smile off my face’ by John de Bever and ‘Yes sir, I can Boogie’ by Baccara are discussed. People are enjoying themselves in the room. The people in the second row sing and move along. The ten behind the drums try to follow the rhythm of piano teacher Gerard Boersma.
“Great,” Fokko calls the drum lesson. “That’s really nice man. You’re doing something completely different, that’s fun too.” What makes it so fun? “That you do it together. See if I can just do this…”, he says while drumming on the drums. “I just really like that. That rhythm in it…”
Participant Margje agrees with Fokko: she calls the drum lesson fantastic. “It’s great fun and everyone participates,” she says with a smile on her face. She says that thanks to Groenzorg she came completely to life. The drum lessons are an example of this and you will see that during the lesson. She sits behind the drums with concentration and every now and then that smile appears again. Why does she like it so much? “Just being together, singing together and playing the drums of course, that’s fantastic.”