Intergenerational meetings in Spain, Poland and Romania, April-June 2023

From April to June 2023, AGE project partners organized and implemented several meetings between their local seniors and young adult, who previously received a training developed for this purpose. A unique experience for the project organizations – Fundacja Autokreacja and Stowarzyszenie Szukamy Polski in Poland, TEAM4Excellence in Romania, Fundación Rondilla and Asociación Deses-3 in Spain – and their senior and young users, who shared life experiences, but most importantly past and present digital habits that lot has to do with the project essence.

The Learning Age project, in fact, aims at making seniors independent digital users through the contact with those younger people in their community surroundings that are digital natives and consume technology with no effort. The intergenerational meetings had the format of a training for seniors, where their need to be using digital devices for their daily activities, such as buy online, take medical or administrative appointments, enter in their bank account through an App, were addressed by the natural expertise of the young adults so involved. Nevertheless, the latter also learnt a lot about patience and empathy, the value of memory and importance of sacrifice, something that the new generations born in the era of immediacy and instantaneity need to know and to be prepared to experience one day, and have the means to do face it.

Indeed, it was a social and human exchange that provided the AGE project of a strong emotional weight, and some great results of the overall teaching/learning process between the two generations: a YouTube channel with amatorial videos whose main characters are seniors introducing and explaining useful skills and knowledge to a younger public around Europe.

Location: Poland, Romania, Spain
Date: April-June 2023