Activities

INTERGENERATIONAL EXERCISE

Number of participants

5 to 25 participants

Objectives

● To connect with each other and be aware of the group
● To foster inclusivity for older participants and address the challenges they face in sharing their life experiences without patronising them.
● To celebrate diversity in the group.

Where does the activity take place within the process (beginning, middle, end)

Beginning

Duration

45 minutes

Material needed

● A speaker or any device with music
● Chairs

Preparation

Prepare the room/space so that it is as spacious as it can be, without obstacles.

Step by step description

1. Ask participants to walk around, exploring the place at varying speeds (walk very slowly, then faster, or really fast, then slow again). Invite participants to explore the place with all the options.

2. Invite them to pause in one place and find someone in the room they haven’t met or worked with before.

3. Encourage them to stand face-to-face and engage in a one-minute conversation without interruptions. After the minute is over, they resume the talk.

4. Instruct them to continue walking and to find another new partner, and engage in another one-minute conversation.

5. Stop the first part of the activity and arrange the chairs in a circle for everyone to sit or join the circle.

6. Ask participants the following question: “How are you feeling now after these discussions ?” Let t them express spontaneously and voluntarily about it.

7. Ask the participants to introduce themselves by sharing the following:
-Their name
-Their age
-A personal characteristic they’d like to share with the rest of the group. This can be any personal detail (e.g., “I have 5 children,” “I have a headache,” etc.).

8. The exercise finishes when all participants have spoken and presented themselves.

Closing up

To finish the activity, you can reflect jointly with the group on this exercise asking the following questions:

● How are you feeling ?
● Did this exercise help you to learn anything ?

Engage in a discussion about how to make older participants feel included without overprotecting them and how to guide the conversation with care and respect.

Resources

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Comments / hints for facilitators

This activity helps participants to learn more about each other, their social roles, and personal characteristics. It is important to be sensitive to the unique challenges faced by older participants in sharing their life experiences. It is important to introduce and openly discuss the challenge of involving older individuals in the activity. This is to recognize their wealth of life experiences and the potential difficulty they may face in sharing them in this context. This will help them to feel safer, recognised and also realise they share similar experiences with other participants. That being said, it is important to be aware of the tendency to overprotect older participants. This is by facilitating them to use the space and to have adequate time to speak It is important to make them feel included while still taking care of the rest of the group and participants, allowing all of them to participate in a balanced way.
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