Building bridges between generations through dialogues

Summary

The SAHARA program, implemented in collaboration with Changunarayan Municipality and Nepal Red Cross Society, Bhaktapur with the support of the Swiss Red Cross, has been organizing intergenerational dialogue programs in schools and JNMCs to promote mutual understanding and respect between generations.

Recently, an intergenerational dialogue program was conducted with students of Grades 6,7 and 8 from Shree Changunarayan Secondary School, Ward No.1, along with their teachers, at the Neupane Gaun Jestha Nagarik Milan Chautari. The program provided a safe and open platform for both children and older adult citizens to share their thoughts, experiences and concerns.
During the interaction, students openly expressed the challenges and weaknesses they perceive among older adult citizens, which helped bring unspoken issues into open. At the same time, the feelings, experiences, and perspectives of the older adult citizens were respectfully heard and acknowledged. This mutual exchange helped both groups better understand each other.

As a result of the dialogue, older adults expressed their commitment to improving their behavior toward children and pledged not to repeat past mistakes. Likewise, the students promised to love, respect and care for older adults. The students also committed to send their grandparents to take the membership of JNMC. The program successfully fostered empathy, mutual respect and positive behavioral change among all participants.

The School Management Committee appreciated the effectiveness of the program and emphasized its importance in promoting positive behavioral change among students, older adults and teachers alike. The committee also expressed sincere gratitude to Changunarayan Municipality and the Nepal Red Cross Society.

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Sector(s): Health, Information and communication, Social protection

Desired outcome for older people:
Build and maintain relationships

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Ageism
Accessibility
Elder abuse
Inclusion
Participation
Technologies

Contact details

Name: Dinesh Thapa

Email address: dinesh.jagdish7@gmail.com

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Local authorities

Others involved in the project:

Civil Society Organisation
Older People’s Association
Social or health care provider
Volunteers

How collaboration worked: Changunarayan Municipality is implementing Shared Action for Healthy Active and Respectful Ageing (SAHARA) project in 9 wards of Changunarayan Municipality in collaboration with Nepal Red Cross Society with financial support from Swiss Red Cross from 2024-2026.

Older people’s involvement: Older people were involved in the age-friendly practice at multiple or all stages

Details on older people’s involvement: The senior citizen’s club formed in all wards are led by senior citizen and implementing their yearly activities through their members with support from local government, Red Cross and stakeholders.

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: No

Do you plan to evaluate your age-friendly practice? Yes

Expansion plans:
We would like to expand the age friendly practices in all domains of age friendly city framework proposed by WHO. Physical Infrastructure will be made age friendly and the budget will be allocated in annually. The Municipality will coordinate and collaborate with province and federal government for resources.

Looking back

Challenges:
The resource management is key challenges to implement activities related to healthy ageing in community through senior citizen’s club. During the project implementing period, the resources will be provided by Municipality and Red Cross but for further sustainability of resources management the local level meetings will be carried out with local stakeholders including the cooperatives, financial institutions, business house, non government organizations to manage resources, where the Senior Citizen’s Club will take lead and the ward office along with Red Cross Sub chapter will provide technical support. The municipality will also allocate resources annually as per its capacity for functioning of the Senior Citizen’s Club formed in all wards.