Health and social care students have raised over £850 to help set up a dementia café service at New College Durham with a sponsored memory walk.

Around 70 people including staff and students, and their friends and family, took part in the 1.6-mile walk on the perimeter of County Durham’s Beamish Museum.

Some of the funds will be used to set up a dementia café service for two hours a month at the college’s Café 50 with the support of the Alzheimer’s Society, and the rest will be directly donated to the charity.

The café will help reduce isolation for those suffering from the degenerative disease, and it will provide opportunities to socialise, while guest speakers will come to offer advice and information to carers.

“The Dementia Café project will provide an excellent opportunity for our students to work in partnership with the local community and gain hands-on experience of working closely with individuals with a diagnosis of dementia and see the impact it has on their lives, and the lives of their family,” said Helen Owen, head of school for health, care and public services at the college.