Idea for a project which could happen in spring time
Lachie
This is an idea for an event which could happen around spring time to promote the community health benefits for gardening and sharing knowledge. This is only an idea right now. I'm thinking it would be better to start with just the gardening part. Any comments are very welcome
Grand-Skills Day Project Brief
Grand-skills day is a community health event which draws families together around healthy activities and celebrates the skills of Grand-parents and Grand-children alike. Many social and health problems in the modern world are precipitated or perpetuated by reduced family connection and intergenerational support and knowledge sharing. This project draws attention to the importance of family connection and support in maintaining health and wellbeing for the whole community. It also values community capacity and traditional activities which bring families together. Through participating in enjoyable recreation together we create the conditions where families feel more able to seek support each other when needed and share in activities which maintain health. Healthy occupation such as art, music, cooking, gardening and outdoor recreation have proved to both heal and maintain health for individuals and communities.
Grand-skills days use enjoyable activities as a medium to bring people together and social media to register participation and document positive outcomes and increase community awareness of existing projects and events that are good for communities. Participants are asked to register online to receive a resource pack and become eligible for prizes. The event takes place wherever participants choose in the community, be it in their homes or the site of their chosen activities. Participants are encouraged to share skills which have been of benefit to them with their Grand-parent or Grand-child and then upload a record to the Grand-skills blog, making them eligible for prizes. The blog will be moderated by project workers and promoted through social media. This is an opportunity for senior citizens to learn some basic internet skills from their grand-children.
Resource packs are developed to suit a small number of activity categories which are Art and Craft, Gardening, Outdoors and Food. Participants may choose for one or all categories each Grand-skills day. Each category has its own prize.
An arts and craft pack may contain some patterns and instructions for small arts projects, a guide for picture frame building, local art and craft event information, information on existing youth specific music projects and family friendly music events.
A gardening pack would contain a small number of seedlings propagated by the Bendigo community gardening network, a local planting calendar, basic tips for gardening success, information on existing community gardening projects and links to online resources.
An outdoors pack would contain information on local outdoors focused clubs, ideas for interesting family out doors activities such as ‘geo caching’.
A food pack could contain some interesting international recipes, healthy food ideas and ideas for themed dinner parties.
A focus on learning and teaching traditional healthy activities and technology skillsvalues the unique abilities of our oldest and youngest generations and creates opportunities for families to discuss their personal hobbies interests, some of which the other generation may never have known existed. When we have real challenges sometimes it is easier and safer to discuss them through an artistic form or while doing an activity. Grand-skills days are run periodically and can run in conjunction with other events which raise awareness such as Drug action week and Earth Hour. Grand-skillscan be run in partnership with multiple local organisations who have a stake in healthy families and communities building on existing working partnerships and working towards common goals.
This project is not limited to biological family. Some elderly people are not in contact with their biological family but have some links to other families in their area. Regular parents can participate too as supporters, organisers or like any other participant although the focus of this project is building links between the youngest and oldest generations. The parent – child relationship may be problematic for some people however and this project may provide some relief by engaging the wisdom of grandparents.
The Project could be promoted through local schools, health and wellbeing organisations, sporting clubs and other interested groups through flyers and a simple website.
Forms of documentation could include: A photo of the biggest fish you caught, a recording or a song you have written at some point, a photo of a meal you have made together or a written family recipe, a written piece, a scanned copy of some visual art or photograph, an entertaining video. Documentation should be appropriate although this is unlikely to be an issue since it will result though a collaboration