Strengthening the relationship between youth and seniors
The intergenerational guidance acts as a tool for intergenerational learning which involves the exchange and acquisition of skills, values, and knowledge among people of different age groups and generations. Through intergenerational guidance, an important outcome is the creation and/ or the strengthening of relationships between these individuals. The project entitled InterGenic – Supporting the European Union’s twin transition through intergenerational learning, knowledge exchange and joint actions, co-funded by the European Union and the ERASMUS+ programme in the field of adult education, undertakes to strengthen this effort through the development of an educational package in relation to intergenerational guidance in order to support in practice the European Union’s efforts towards its digital and green transition; an objective resulting from the European Union’s development strategy and the European Green Deal.
The objectives of the project involve:
- the enhancement and transfer of digital skills from young people to seniors 55+;
- the reintroduction of sustainable green practices taught by seniors 55+ to young people;
- the suggestion of local solutions for the twin transition (green and digital); and
- the awareness raising, while bridging the socio-scientific generation gap.
The InterGenic consortium consists of 8 partners, which are the Jaume I University in Spain, InterAktion organisation in Austria, ODISEE in Belgium, the Entrepreneurship and Social Economy Support Network – DYEKO in Greece, the professional organisation EuroSpeak Limited in Ireland and the Innovation Education Lab in Romania. In Cyprus, the project is implemented by the University of Limassol (UoL) and Materia Group in Nicosia.
The project has a duration of 2 years (December 2023 – November 2025). In January 2024, the InterGenic project team was hosted by the University of Limassol (UoL) in Cyprus and held the first face-to-face meeting where work officially started, and targets were set for the first deliverables of the project.
The next actions of the project involve the implementation of workshops with the target groups which are young people aged 18-25 and seniors 55+. Initially, through the workshops with youth and seniors 55+, the knowledge and the practices used by each generation in terms of technological tools and traditional ecological practices, will be explored and recorded, respectively. Afterwards, based on the collected information, an educational package will be developed, and it will be available online. Furthermore, the target groups will be then trained to become mentors in order to share and transfer the knowledge and the practices on the topics mentioned above. At the same time, the target groups will work together to create a joint intergenerational action to solve a local problem in their community.
In Cyprus, the above will be implemented by the University of Limassol and the Materia Group in collaboration with the Community Council of Lympia and the Youth group of the community, United Youth of Lympia.
As of March 2024, the implementation of the workshops has started. Through these workshops, a number of ecological practices and technological tools were proposed by the target groups, and they have been recorded in order to support the development of the educational package. Using the method of intergenerational collaboration, the residents of Lympia will work together to promote and put into practice the community’s green and digital transition, as well as to strengthen the relationships between the different generations of the community.
Source: University of Limassol | News (https://shorturl.at/CV346)