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Bridging the Gap
What is it?
Bridging the Gap is a creative writing project which, in 2019/20, by way of a pilot project, paired young people from a Newham secondary school with an elder. The young person interviewed their older partner to find out more about their personal story and wrote a journalistic piece to be shared. In June 2023 we gained funding from the Department of Levelling Up, Houses and Communities to do a Bridging the Gap ‘Windrush special’.
We worked with a group of young people & elders in Enfield holding tea parties for them to meet & exchange dialogue. The results of these were made into a short film & we also held a screening with live entertainment on Windrush Day at the Dugdale Centre in Enfield. This was hosted by MOBO award winning singer Lurine Cato MBE & featured some of the young people reading poems based on their discussions with the elders.
The film can be found here
Who’s it for?
School students from across the country, aged 11 to 18, who have been identified by teaching staff as having the potential to particularly benefit from this project. They will be paired with an older person and work together to create a piece of writing which can take any form – poetry, prose or a piece of journalism.
Benefits
Inter-generational projects can have a host of benefits. Barriers are broken down between young and old, and long-lasting community ties built on respect and understanding are formed. Both parties learn from each other, better understand their own and others’ identities, and can explore ideas and experiences from new perspectives. The young people will develop rich communication and writing skills, , and build up their self-confidence and self-esteem through sharing their written pieces at the end of the project.
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The 2021 Launch
Although a full launch of the Bridging the Gap project was delayed as a result of Covid-19, we were still able to make a start before the lockdown began when students from Kingsford Community School in Newham met a group of pensioners at their local library. One of the teachers overseeing this described it as “one of the most wonderful experiences of his teaching career”. We were so excited to finally get started again in 2023. Covid-19 has been particularly tough for older people and the young – for different reasons. Being able to share their experiences of lockdown and perspectives on the pandemic has bought the generations even closer together and enriched the creative outputs of this project. It has helped to address some of the loneliness and isolation that has been endured. We hope to end up with a unique anthology and a time capsule for future generations to understand this exceptional point in time.
Get Involved
If you would like your school to be involved in Bridging the Gap or you would like to make a general enquiry, wish to volunteer or would like information on how to sponsor, please use the contact form below.
