Young and Old team up for Social Innovations
Embracing the young and the old is quite a unique feature of many Lingnan University Knowledge Transfer (KT) projects where much intergenerational work is involved. This is built on our strengths in KT generated from research of high social relevance, and our conviction as a liberal arts university that for the people whom we seek to benefit in making knowledge and innovations work for their needs, we treasure their ideas and participation, whether they are from different generations or walks of life.
With the generous donation of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charitable Trust which supports our “We Care, We Serve & We Learn @ Tuen Mun” Programme, the Office of Service-Learning (OSL) organised the I-Gen Series 2018 to enable university students, secondary school students and the elderly to come together to learn about the concept of social innovation, explore new projects for the ageing population and benefit from being trained as social leaders. Exciting activities in which these participants might not have the opportunity to take part as a team before include:
- visiting the co-working space “Dream Impact”, a community that gathers social entrepreneurs to promote innovative thinking and the concept of social enterprise
- getting some ideas of the business operations and visions of different start-ups
- designing a diverse intergenerational community project under the guidance of Dream Impact facilitators
In a social environment where people of different generations struggle to appreciate each other’s views, these KT activities offer precious chances for the seem-to-be disparate groups of the young and old to learn, innovate and grow together - not only in terms of skills, but also, importantly, in terms of understanding each other’s ways of thinking, and thus promote social understanding.
