Learning Neighbourhoods: Intergenerational Learning, Exchange and Respectful Community Building

Cork City (Ireland) Learning Neighbourhoods places a particular emphasis on how neighbourhood level intergenerational learning can have wider community benefits. Two projects in the Ballyphehane neighbourhood, which has one of the oldest age profiles of any community in Ireland, offer useful insights into positive outcomes for older adults and teenagers. Learning Neighbourhoods, developed under the aegis of Cork Learning City, aims at creating a community level model to generate sustainable, flourishing, inclusive, learning. Promoting a culture of intergenerational exchange enables opportunities for mutual learning and mutual recognition across all neighbourhood age groups within and across neighbourhoods. Intergenerational exchange directly benefits the individual older adults that engage, it also has benefits for older adults as a community within a neighbourhood, but other generations also gain from these types of exchange.