The elderly have a soft spot in our hearts so Pres and I would always find ways on how to entertain them and spend time with them. Residents of the nursing homes we’d frequent always light up and at times get teary-eyed whenever we’d visit them.
Our charity events for nursing homes would always end with our Wo Wo Ni Ni dance. Originally sang by Ms Rebecca Pan and popularised by Mr Dick Lee in 1989, Wo Wo Ni Ni is one catchy love song and since our very first event at Pearl’s Hill Care Home in Chinatown Singapore, our volunteers have since been dancing to Wo Wo Ni Ni! The residents just love it and the nursing staff would, no miss, dance along!
The Rehab team of one nursing home we support actually adopted our dance moves to Mr Dick Lee’s song as their morning exercise and they are now exploring if they can make this as the exercise routine for some able senior residents even while on their wheelchairs!
So what I did, some seven months back, I wrote to Mr Dick Lee hoping he could grace our charity events, which typically highlight his Wo Wo Ni Ni song. We told him that the nursing home residents love this song of his and they would sing and dance with us volunteers even if they are on their beds. We were told that there have been dance numbers by other groups but it is only Mr Dick Lee’s Wo Wo Ni Ni song most residents recognise and really enjoy listening and dancing to!
Mr Dick Lee said YES and after myriad checks on his schedule, we finally set the date – 8 December 2017; we’d do Christmas caroling for the residents of Woodlands Care Home!
I made arrangements that my colleagues and I do a little caroling for our good folks and we went for practice almost everyday, including the Wo Wo Ni Ni dance!
The Rehab team of Woodlands Care Home had gathered a few interested residents to do the dance moves and they even had it videotaped – so fun to watch them swing their hips and wave their arms up in the air!
With Mr Gilbert, Madame New, and the Rehab Team of Woodlands Care Home doing the Wo Wo Ni Ni dance
We made sure that the dance steps are easy so the senior residents could easily pick up and wouldn’t get tired after each and every practice. To our surprise, they loved every bit of it!
Dancing as a form of therapy is definitely a fun way to engage the elderly. This brings along myriad benefits and with Mr Dick Lee gracing our event, such a huge celebrity singing a familiar tune would undoubtedly excite the senior residents during the charity event!
And to top up their excitement, Pres and I prepared this Christmas caroling invite – sooooooo cute! Mr Dick Lee is our parachuting star 🙂
With York Fuan, that sweet lady who heads the Woodlands Care Home Rehab Team
“Offering care means being a companion, not a superior. It doesn’t matter whether the person we are caring for is experiencing cancer, the flu, dementia, or grief. If you are a doctor or surgeon, your expertise and knowledge come from a superior position. But when our role is to be providers of care, we should be there as equals.” ― Judy Cornish
