Two years ago a play group for children between two and four years old, in the Dutch city Leeuwarden, had difficulties to find a new location. Accidentally an old peoples home for lightly demented had space left. The two groups found each other. Now the young children visit the “grand parents” on the other side of the hall every day.
Since the two generations play together the demented old people are more vivid and they even start talking about there own youth. They communicate a lot more and they are less dependent from care because they are occupied with the children. The children are more relaxed and they enjoy all the attention.
Usually the children do not have a lot of contact with their grandparents, but because of this project they are more open towards older people. Besides this they develop more social skills and already in an early stage they learn that other individuals think differently. Even the parents of the children are stimulated. They are stimulated to think about there own old age and for example about dementia. Since the end of the eighties these kind of projects started to pop up on more locations in Holland.
Activities: propose item idea, research, set up & planning, accompany filming.