In April and May 2023, I travelled across Europe meeting people who are bringing people together across the generations.

I witnessed a proliferation of rituals and rhythms of intergenerational connectivity: ways of living together, eating together, working together, listening together, interpreting together, serving together and making-meaning together.

On one level these appear to be new, but I think this reveals something about the context I grew up in. I’m a creature of a Western European culture whereby isolation, independence and so-called efficiency have been prioritised over more instinctive, age-old habits of communal and relational ways of living and being together.

At the simplest level, my preoccupation as I emerge from this experience is that we need much more of this sort of stuff, and quickly, if we are to foster the intergenerational connections needed in the years of uncertainty, change and loss we have ahead. This will take commitment from civil society, proactive funding by philanthropy organisations and concerted effort by each and everyone of us.

Contents

Across the following pages of my website you will find my emerging reflections from the Fellowship structured in the following sections:

1. An introduction to my Fellowship - what I set out in search of

2. Stories that moved me - 5 stories of intergenerational connectivity

3. Sicilian reflections - field notes from the month I spent in rural Sicily

4. European reflections - field notes from the two months I spend travelling across Europe

5. So what? Emerging conclusions and considerations for the intergenerational sector, funders and myself

Before I get going…

Before I get going I want to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to The Churchill Fellowship and The Royal Countryside Fund for making this fellowship possible.