There’s nothing like a buddy to keep your mind and body active and to improve your health. Younger buddies can be especially meaningful and rewarding. Kerry Hannon reports for Next Avenue on a new intergenerational mentoring program that connects older adults with pre-teens around the world. Here’s how it works.
If you’re the parent who wants her eight to thirteen year old to connect with an older person, you can reach out to Eldera. Eldera finds a volunteer mentor match for your child and provides a video link for their meetings through Zoom. Mentors and kids typically meet for between half an hour and an hour and a half each week.
Eldera screens all mentors before matching them with kids. The kids can be from a large number of countries, including Brazil, Germany, Kenya and South Korea. The volunteer mentors are all based in the US.
Parents might look to Eldera for an expert on topics their children have burning questions about. Kids could be deeply curious about a range of topics that their parents have little or no knowledge about. And, school might not be able to satisfy the kids’ curiosity.
Eldera’s goal is to tap into the wisdom of older adults and have younger generations benefit. The coronavirus pandemic was the spark that fueled its establishment. Already, there is a waitlist for parents looking for Eldera mentors for their kids.
If you’re interested in volunteering your services to an intergenerational program, here are a few other tech programs that promote intergenerational learning: Generation to Generation, Big and Mini, Sharing Smiles, Boombox Collaboratory, CIRKEL, and CareerVillage.org.
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