East Renfrewshire Intergenerational Festival

Over the last few weeks a group of organisations: Generations Working Together, Outside the box, East Renfrewshire Culture and Leisure and Hazeldene Family Centre have been facilitating the East Renfrewshire Intergenerational Festival. The festival was supported by East Renfrewshire Good Causes and took place all over East Renfrewshire with the aim of bringing older and younger people together, as well as developing an understand of intergenerational communities and projects. The project was created to raise an awareness of intergenerational work, but also to give people the chance to get to know their neighbours and community more.

A big part of the sessions was the drawing of what an intergenerational community should look like. This gave people the chance to share their ideas and problems in the local areas. The results of this task were particularly interesting because we got feedback from younger children, most from primaries and some of their ideas included suggestions such as ‘mini author centre’ and ‘ideas forum’.
The sessions ran from Thursday the 4th of May to Tuesday 30th of May. Throughout this time there were hold 6 sessions on different week days in Newton Mearns at Mearns Library and Broom Parish Church, in Neilston at Neilston Library, in Giffnock at Giffnock Library, in Williamwood at Eastwood Health and Care Centre and in Barrhead at Barrhead Health and Care Centre to give a chance to everyone to come along.

The event attracted a lot of interest with schools, individuals and politicians approaching us to find out more about intergenerational work. Overall there were about 160 individuals who attended the event. The sessions also included breaking stereotype sessions, shared ideas and current intergenerational projects. Many politicians took an interest in the project and sent us messages of support including Ross Greer, the youngest politician in the Scottish Parliament and a green MSP in the area. We were also visited by a local MP, Kirsten Oswald and the Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh who were very keen to find out more and to help with intergenerational work. The festival also had a prize draw and the winner of a £25 Silverburn gift card was Andrea McKeown. She attended the Broom Parish Church event in Newton Mearns on 22nd May 2017 with her son.

The main things we learnt was the change and activities that people wanted to see in their communities. Suggestions included more parks, ways to get more exercise and sports, better transport and support for older people to use transport, easier access to computers. There were also suggestions about ways older people can help younger people and families, with people across generations spending more time together. For example residents in care homes spending time with children after school – this can help to take pressure off parents picking up children and older people can help with hearing reading, playing games. Additionally, gardening together and doing classes over the summer holidays. For a full report and how the intergenerational festival was organised and funded please get in touch.

If you attended any sessions and are able to leave feedback or like the idea of running an intergenerational project in the future in your area please let us know by e-mailing Sorina or Kate