Trust backs national campaign to highlight benefits of intergenerational activity

National Intergenerational Week is a social media campaign for individuals and organisations to promote projects, which bring different age groups together.

Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds

The campaign is backed by Bristol-based charity, the St Monica Trust who took part in the ground-breaking Channel 4 show, Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds.

The show famously brought together eleven Cote Lane residents and ten children from local preschools and showed the transformative power that simply being around children had for the older people.

The Trust has since grown its reputation for work which brings different age groups together for mutual benefit, rolling out intergenerational projects across its retirement communities and contributing to multiple pieces of research.

The Intergenerational conversation

St Monica Trust’s Senior Digital Communications Executive, Ben Dunn who created the campaign said: “The intergenerational conversation is a really important one at the moment.

“That’s partly because of a growing amount of study to support bringing together different generations as a credible means of addressing social isolation.

“There’s loads of amazing intergenerational work taking place across the UK, which are tackling isolation by bringing together people from all different age groups in a number of creative ways.

“What we’re trying to do is bring together the wider conversation, provide an opportunity to share learning and also amplifying the importance of the work that is being done through a collective voice.”

How to take part

During the campaign, organisations and individuals are encouraged to join the online conversation by sharing their intergenerational projects and their wider benefits on social media using the hashtag #IntergenerationalWeek from Monday 23 to Sunday 29 March 2020.

Continued Ben: “We have more than sixty organisations from across the UK who have signed up to participate in the campaign so far.

“We’re looking forward to bringing everyone together during the week itself and hearing about all the intergenerational activities and projects that are happening out there.

“We appreciate that we’re not trying to change the world overnight. What we would like to see is a good selection of organisations from all over the UK representing different sectors taking part and joining in the conversation.”