Hunter’s Hill Council, New South Wales, has entered an innovative partnership with Macquarie University and Touched by Olivia, a charity that connects with families through play, creating its Livvi’s Place national network of inclusive play spaces.
Through an ‘intergenerational remembering’ project, the three organisations have entered a memorandum of understanding, and are developing an academic and cultural interchange in research and other programs and activities.
The five year collaboration will involve research into intergenerational remembering, aiming to enable adolescents as oral historians to act as conversational partners for older Australian adults.
Research will attempt to measure how Australian culture, history, and identity are transmitted via oral memory conversations between older and younger generations and the benefits of such conversations for both groups.
Mayor, Mark Bennett said, “These are two key groups in our very well-connected community, and we look forward to better understanding, assisting and recording the special connections between older and younger residents.
“Through innovative collaborations such as this we are also seeking to meet the challenge of finding more effective and meaningful ways to connect people to address social isolation, which we have seen impacting upon very young and very old residents here in Hunters Hill.
Lead researcher Dr Penny Van Bergen, Associate Professor in the Macquarie School of Education, said she was excited to be collaborating with Hunter’s Hill Council on the innovative program.
“We’ve long predicted the positive benefits of intergenerational programs such as this.
“Older adults have the opportunity to share memories and lessons from their lives with young people, while the younger generation have the opportunity to learn about the rich diversity of Australian history and society from those who have lived it.
“We’re eager to see what happens when we test these benefits. This really is a pioneering program, working with fabulous organisations, and we’re hoping in time it might have benefits for groups across Australia.”
