They accompanied a group of users with mental health conditions to a cognitive training session at the headquarters of the María José Jove Foundation in A Coruña

Banco Sabadell employees took part in a cognitive training session as part of Art and Health, a programme organised by the María José Jove Foundation Art Centre for people at risk of exclusion, which uses art as a tool for inclusion. This was a special session in which Banco Sabadell volunteers in A Coruña accompanied the participants of this programme in a multisensory stimulation activity in which artworks owned by the María José Jove Foundation Art Collection were used to help them better understand their environment, increase their attention span, and analyse and interpret the stimuli, thus prompting logical and creative thinking by stimulating all of the senses.

In the activity in which they took part, they worked with different lights, textures and sounds related to the artworks and to the ambience in the exhibition hall, giving the participants a unique sensory experience.

Convinced of art’s potential as a tool for inclusion, the Banco Sabadell Foundation and the María José Jove Foundation joined forces to improve the lives of people at risk of exclusion through art. To that end, early in the year, the Banco Sabadell Foundation opted to take part in the Art and Health programme that the María José Jove Foundation has been running for the past six years and which have made it a leading institution in Spain.

Art and Health offers access to culture and aims to improve the personal skills of different groups: entities and people with functional diversity; people with mental illnesses (depression and adjustment disorders with depressed mood or anxiety); people with serious and chronic illnesses; people on their own, without any perceived social support or with difficulties socialising with others; people with cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia; and people at risk of social exclusion due to social and economic problems.

The objective is to improve their mental, physical, social, emotional and cognitive skills through workshops that have been adapted based on the artworks of the María José Jove Foundation and which focus on four areas: psychomotor skills, social development, emotional intelligence training and cognitive training.