Supporting the rehabilitation and reintegration of those with mental illness

In September 2022, we worked with around 250 IMBA students from IE Business School in Madrid, Spain, at Occupational Rehabilitation Center Carmen García de Gúdal – Leganés.

In total, throughout the month, we worked with 1,030 IE Business School students over 17 days benefiting three charitable organisations.

The centre looks after people with serious or long-lasting mental illness focusing on rehabilitating them so they can live independently in the community. Over five days, 40 – 50 students each day, created a garden area with raised planters, seating areas and a wheelchair accessible ramp/walkway.

The new facilities have given the residents the opportunity to grow and eventually sell fruit and vegetables in their community, while gaining skills that will help with their reintegration into society. In this way, the project build is supporting their rehabilitation process.

“For this project some of the residents helped with the building alongside the students,” said Phil Weeks, Splash Projects Operations Director who was the Project Manager for the programme. “This made them feel part of the project that was being done for them, and during the day while they were all chatting together, the students heard directly from the residents about how the project would benefit them, making it even more purposeful.”

On multi-day projects teams create a handover report after the project build; these contain information to assist the next group including what work has been completed and what needs to be done next, as well as lessons learned. This enables them to pick up where they left off, seamlessly.

Each student media team plays an integral role capturing the project experience, including the challenges and learning points the team faced, as well as the successes. The footage is then crafted into a short film by the Splash Media Facilitator which is shown to the new group the next day.