Despite the prejudices, in Navas there are very active young people and older people who, although they share territory, barely know each other. After more than two years of work with the Prism Project, we also propose breaking with this stereotype to promote intergenerational dialogue.
Facilitating the meeting of two seemingly opposite generations did not seem an easy task, but it would be necessary in the neighborhood of Navas. Two years ago, when we arrived in the territory to collaborate with the Community Plan and PES Navas in the creation of A community and participatory space for young people and adolescents, the most frequent comment among the group was that they wanted to change the perception that older people had of young people, because they felt misunderstood.
During the first theatre dynamics, the group from Proyecto Prisma staged moments of encounter with some neighbours who thought that young people were not doing anything in the neighbourhood. They emulated older people by saying that they did nothing or that they lost their time sitting in the Plaza Ferran Reyes. They repeated what they heard on the street and so they also fed their own stereotypes.
So, after three seasons and many streets traveled, with an eye on the camera, knowing the neighborhood, investigating among the people, making small critical reports, the group decided, finally, to meet and interview the older people of Navas.
The moment of breaking stereotypes arrived
This was, without doubt, the perfect moment: the group of young people had expanded with the incorporation of students from the Joan Fuster Institute, and, in turn, the people of the Casal de Personas Mayores de Navas were enthusiastic about the idea of opening their doors to facilitate meetings.
The group of young people prepared thoroughly, carried out chamber tests, investigated the places in the neighborhood that could be significant for the elderly, wrote a script with the questions they wanted to ask during the meetings and even made a graphic report of the Intergenerational Literary Day of the Civic Center of Navas.
It was then that they began to talk, then the interviews came. They talked about love and poetry, youth and ageing, technology and work, the neighborhood and immigration, how everything has changed and how it will change in the future, when these young people are older and tell others and others, younger, what they learned from this experience.
Behind cameras of the work process of “The intergenerational dialogues of Navas”.
From theSpeaking we have developed several intergenerational proposals that we invite you to know. Como Compartint Experiències, a learning and service project -APS that reaches its third edition in several institutes of the district of Les Corts, or Itineràncies Visibles, an artistic proposal that works identity and memory.