Youngsters and elders defeating together the loneliness shadows
BONDING – Facilitating intergenerational solidarity and learning
through building friendships between youngsters and elderly
project number: 2021-1-PL01-KA220-YOU-000028897
Project duration: 01/01/2022-01/01/2024
Project aims
The project promotes active citizenship, young people’s sense of initiative and youth entrepreneurship including social entrepreneurship. BONDING aims at enhancing the young people’s civic engagement, by devising and implementing innovative volunteering services for the elderly.
The voluntary befriending services that the project promotes will help address the before-mentioned exacerbating vulnerabilities, contribute to improving elderly’s wellbeing and overcoming their social exclusion. They will create value and benefit young and old alike in terms of knowledge, experience and self-esteem.
What activities will BONDING carry out?
It will primarily canalise resources, develop tools and provide educational activities which will contribute to establish youth befriending services at the benefit of the elders.
These befriending services can be as simple as a weekly telephone call to an isolated older person, or extend to regular home visits for a chat and to help with shopping and so on; small actions that have a huge, positive, impact.
During its life, the BONDING project will produce the following:
- The e-publication “Mapping the Befriending Landscape, available in all partner languages and in English in electronic format;
- The comprehensive e-learning course “Youth Befriending Elderly”, tailored to young people;
- The “Awareness-raising Toolkit”, including diverse awareness raising materials for young people, the elderly and their families;
- The “Befriending Networking Platform”, compatible with desktop and mobile devices, which will support the learning and sharing of information, good practice and outcomes
- The Short-term Joint Staff Training (LTTA), equipping the project staff with the needed knowledge, attitudes, skills and tools to successfully mentor young people in establishing their befriending services for the elderly;
- Seven (7) multiplier events – 5 national Info & cooperation sessions and a final international conference.
Target group
- Young people aged 15-29 formal or informal associations of young people, youth and other organizations providing volunteering opportunities for young people
- Elderly people aged over 60, at risk of experiencing loneliness and/or social isolation, especially those living alone or in care facilities
Objectives
The specific objectives are:
- Enhance the capacity of young people in developing volunteering services for the support of the elderly;
- Strengthen young people’s sense of initiative and active citizenship through volunteering with elderly.;
- Foster support for elderly in overcoming social isolation and loneliness;
- Promote intergenerational learning and solidarity;
The BONDING project will lead to the development and piloting of resources, tools and educational activities that will harness young people’s motivation and competences for community volunteering as a form of social and civic engagement. Moreover, it will guide and support young people in critically and actively applying these competences in their realities, and create pathways for their participation in other initiatives in the future. The project encourages a culture of caring and awareness raising on core EU values and principles, including solidarity and cooperation between generations, intergenerational fairness and equality.
Partnership
Project number: 2021-1-PL01-KA220-YOU-000028897
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