Throughout the month of January, members of the Excelcare family set off on the Excelcare World Cruise by visiting Romania
The objective of this group-wide initiative led by Hospitality Lead, Andrew Seal, is to deliver culture and experiences from around the world to the people who live and work in our care homes. Each month, residents will be taken on a virtual tour of a different country and team members will plan activities linked to the selected country’s culture and traditions so that they can experience something new every month.
During virtual trips to Romania across the family, team members arranged for traditional foods to be served, so people could experience some of the delicacies the country has to offer. The types of foods served included Cozornac, which is a sweet type of bread and Samale, which is a Romanian cabbage roll. Taking a dive into culture and traditions from Romania has also been a big part of the month, as team members were keen to ensure the people they care for felt fully immersed in the celebrations.
At Sherrell House Care Home in Chigwell, team members kickstarted the celebrations by encouraging people to dress in traditional Romanian clothes. The people working and living at the home all took part and enjoyed admiring the different patterns and colours that featured on the clothing. They also tried their hand at some traditional Romanian dancing to popular songs from the country. This involved lots of circle dancing and some technical footwork - they all agreed it was much harder than it looked in the videos.
Simona is the Home Manager at Sherrell House and is from Romania, so this was a special occasion for her. She said, “The 24th of January is marked in Romanian history as the ‘Day of the unification of Romanian Principalities’. We celebrated this here at Sherrell House by unifying everyone and dressing in the same traditional outfits. For one day each person felt 'Proud to be Romanian'. All of the outfits we wore were handmade by my mother and great, great grandmothers, meaning some of the outfits are over 100 years old, therefore they have a sentimental value and it is very touching to see them embraced by work colleagues and residents which brought a big smile to their faces."
Lifestyle Coordinator, Astrid is also from Romania and had this to say about the world cruise initiative. “Our cultural backgrounds and traditions should not separate us from each other, but rather bring a collective strength that can benefit all individuals within work settings and more.
People across the family had a great time getting a taste of Romanian culture and experiencing some of their traditions from the comfort of their homes.
Follow our journey on our Facebook page to see where the next stop on our cruise will take us!