The intergenerational listening event took place at Sherburn High School on Tuesday 7 March and was well attended by local council, faith leaders, parents and other community groups.
Local council were delighted to be able to hear from young people and there was a clear message that both the younger and older generations, despite differences in age, have very similar areas of concern. One member of the older group reflected ‘mental health affects us whatever age we are’.
The project, funded by The Dulverton Trust #iwill fund, has been focused on bringing generations together in rural communities to explore social action. The Linking Network (a Bradford based education charity who run national schools linking and intergenerational programmes) delivered some student only preparatory sessions exploring age and ageing and social action before bringing the younger and older people together over three sessions.
The Year 9 health and social care students chose to explore mental health, improving the local area and global issues. The intergenerational groups created ‘zines’ (self published collage magazines) to explore their chosen issues together.
The culmination of the project was the listening event where the work could be shared with the wider community. The project has been a huge success with the older people, students and school keen to have more long term connections and activities.
Students have really increased in confidence in talking about issues that matter to them, as well as being more confident in talking to older people. The older people have valued hearing from and getting to know the younger generation in their local community – ‘I had an idea about what teenagers were like – but this group are so lovely. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t taken part in this project’.
