Project Respect: linking generations and cultures

The project brought together young people with English as a Second Language from the DICE Project at the City Academy Bristol, supported by Young Bristol, with Elders mainly from Caribbean communities, to share experiences and life stories in six exchange sessions over six weeks.

The focus has been on this positive interaction of age groups and cultures.

The project is in its 2nd phase following the successful creation of a permanent sculpture and time capsule at the Trinity Centre during the 1st phase last year. Through funding from Quartet, Trinity has been able to extend the project, reuniting some of the original participants and welcoming new participants.

Both phases have been developed and delivered by Community Artist Victoria Appleton.

The sessions have involved a wide variety of activities, games and forms of interaction. For instance, each person developed their own box in the shape of as book to hold aspects of their life story that they wished to share, and then there was lots of opportunity to share what each person had written or drawn.

Participants have taken cameras home and captured pictures of things that are important to them, they then shared this with the rest of the group.

How participants have benefited

Elders: the impact of this has been having the opportunity to spend time with young people from other countries, some who had only been in this country for a couple of months. The young people were lively, kind and interested in the exchange and the Elders felt honoured to be part of their lives for the period of the sessions.

Young People: they appreciated that the elders had shown them a lot of interest; given up their time to do this and were willing to support them in their life experiences. They also felt the need to take care of the elders, particularly those who needed more support with mobility and learnt that older people are not boring, and that they don’t always order you around!

The project has been effective in that it offered opportunities for talking together and inter-generational and multi-cultural interaction. It took people out of their comfort zone and got them to open up about issues of prejudice and misunderstanding; showing that such attitudes and beliefs are not necessary – there is always another way to communicated and understand each other. It also provided a safe place for the participants to explore aspects of their own and each others life story, the process of which underlined the value and preciousness of each one of those lives.