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Pupils from Woodnook Primary School in Accrington have been celebrating the achievements of a unique project to encourage children and young people to engage with and learn more about the older generation and visa versa.
This local project comes ahead of International Day of Older Persons on Friday, 1st October - a celebration of the 600 million people aged 60 years and over world-wide and their valuable contribution and role in society.
At a special presentation day recently, members of Hyndburn's Better Government for Older People (BGOP) joined with school pupils and a variety of guests including the Mayor of Hyndburn, Cllr Miles Parkinson, to celebrate the success to date of the local 'Intergenerational project'.
Delegates were shown a video of a visit to Blackpool Zoo, which featured some of the children and BGOP members, and was funded by the local Council for Voluntary Service and Woodnook School.
Arthur Bateman, Chair of Hyndburn BGOP, explained:
"We started the intergeneration work with the school three years ago and meet several times a year to discuss how both young and old people see each other. At the end of the year we usually organise a joint event to show the young people that old people also like to have fun and that not all old people are grumpy!
"We have been to fast food restaurants and been ten pin bowling with them. This year we went to Blackpool, which is when the video was filmed.
"All of the young people have been great and it just goes to show that 99% of kids are OK. It's just the 1% get all the bad publicity.
He added: "We now hope to extend the project to older children to see if the link with the young can be as good with teenagers."
BGOP was launched by the Government in 1998. It has developed into a national programme and a learning network driven by older people supported by the Government's Cabinet Office and the Department of Work and Pensions.
Its aim is to gain and promote a better understanding of older people's issues based on the knowledge and experience of older people themselves.
Lancashire County Council Social Services provides support for local BGOP groups in five of their resource centres across the county involving over fifty service users including those who are physically disabled.
The Directorate has been working with some of the most excluded people in the community and this has been recognised as a model of good practise which has been presented at national conferences.
For more information about BGOP call Lancashire Social Services on 01772 532433 or visit www.bgop.org.uk
For media enquiries only please contact: Andrew Lynn on 01772 534372
andrew.lynn@ssd.lancscc.gov.uk
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