The Victorian Hands Foundation

Life Stories Program

To enhance mutual awareness and respect between young and old people, in 2008, Victorian Hands Foundation will launch Life Stories, an intergenerational program pairing young people with seniors to build trusting relationships through focused dialogues, shared activities and skill swaps. Participants will present their experiences and insights through a variety of creative means including writing, photography, video and music, documenting a deeper understanding of the social, historical and cultural forces that have shaped their partners’ lives. Life Stories is an innovative program designed to combat the growing distrust and stereotyping between older and younger generations through meaningful interactions between generations.

Through activities such as interviews and essaying, youth develop oral, written and visual communication skill as they become engaged in senior partners through activities that meet state standards for language arts, social studies and art. Seniors benefit from the companionship and socialization, exercising their cognitive and social skills through remembering and telling stories from their past, combating loneliness and depression in knowing that they have not been abandoned by the communities that they served for so many years. Most importantly, in its dual focus on documentation and dialogue, Life Stories’ design builds mutual support and heightens self-esteem, increasing awareness and understanding between youth and elders, so that both youthful and elder partners have the opportunity to give and be needed in an atmosphere of fun, trust and learning.

Program Description
The program builds on the benefits derived from intergenerational oral history programs such as the Center for Intergenerational Learning at Temple University. Youth, typically from schools, are paired with elders from senior centers. After one or two orientation sessions conducted by a trained Life Stories Coordinator in partnership with staff from school and senior center, seniors and youth meet for an hour a week for up to 10 weeks to share themed structured conversations and activities focusing on topics such as

1.Music and Dance, Then and Now
2.What’s Fun to You?
3.What Do (Did) You Want from Life, Exploration of Expectations
4.Getting Paid: Looking at Work
5.What I’m Good At: Skill Swap
6.Overcoming Hardships Then and Now
7.How Do I Look? Frank Talk on Fashion
8.Best and Worst Advice Then and Now —Talk About Peer Pressure
9.Family Life: What’s Different, What’s the Same?
10.Who Am I and Where Do I Come From?: Diaspora and Culture
11.Who’s Cooking? Culture and Food

Life Stories Coordinators will work with partner staff to prepare participants for weekly sessions, using the activity guides in this manual to help prepare open-ended questions, record responses according to agreed upon protocol and guide participants towards the culminating project which could be an event, a presentation, an extended essay, a collage, video or play, the format to be determined in the orientation session(s).

Manual Overview
This manual provides an overview of benefits to both youth and seniors, which can be used to recruit partner organizations, a suggested outline of session content; activity descriptions and suggested formats for final projects; guidance, checklists and forms on logistical aspects of implementation such as recruitment, optimal pairing of youth and elders; material on informed consent and legal aspects; reprinted material from successful intergenerational oral history projects and an orientation curricula for Life Stories Coordinators, volunteers trained by Victorian Hands Foundation to conduct sessions and help schools and senior centers partner successfully.