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ComeON! "Community projects for social innovation through intergenerational volunteering experiences"

Today’s world presents unprecedented challenges to humanity: children, young, adult and old people. Rapid advances in science and technology are having a major impact on ways of working, organizing, financing, learning, innovating and, in general, living. Internet has completely changed economic business and in the last ten years lots of new professions, markets, industries, forms of governments have arisen. At the same time, we are confronted with a series of societal challenges such as an ageing population, climate change and a deep economic crisis, a real malaise we have to fight in order to improve the quality of life of people. To promote a change of scenery, we can start from schools and social innovation agencies that know the specific needs of their communities and can contribute to support them.

We need to find new ways to enable every person regardless of age, to feel she/he is part of, and can play an active role in, society. The ComeON! project builds on the potential of new forms of volunteering to promote active citizenship of both elderly and young people. ComeON! recognizes that intergenerational solidarity is a need to give innovative answers to the challenges described, since all energies, knowledge, experience and resources are required, especially to make a difference at the level of communities and territories.

The project strives to create new opportunities for personal and social growth for young and elderly volunteers, supporting them as they set up intergenerational initiatives geared to providing novel solutions to community needs.

ComeON! will develop and, together with secondary school teachers, pilot and refine an innovative intergenerational training course. The course will offer to the young and the old exciting opportunities to learn through and about interactive face-to-face (‘physical’) methods and cutting-edge virtual platforms. Participants will, furthermore, learn about and experience the ways in which the physical and the virtual can be joined to create novel ways to bring about social change through social innovation projects at the community level. Participation in ComeON! will showcase the potential of both older and young citizens to contribute actively together to the important challenges facing current day Europe.

ComeON! started in October 2013 and will continue until September 2015.

www.comeon-project.eu

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