Navigation path

  • print this page
  • Decrease font-size
  • Increase font-size
  • Choose high contrast version
  • Choose standard colour version

The Tortosa Intergenerational Storytelling Project

Spain

Cataluña(Spain)

The Tortosa Intergenerational Storytelling Project © Vincles project

Intergenerational ties and exchanges is a learning project for both seniors, kindergarten and primary school children. Launched at the start of 2012 with the collaboration of UNESCO, the goal of the initiative has been to encourage reading as a strategy to combat school failure, encourage intergenerational links by involving older people in the community, and promote inter-cultural contact reflecting the diversity of the town's population.

In this project, senior volunteers became 'storytellers', reading and telling stories to children to share and encourage the pleasure of reading while establishing emotional connections and complicity regarding feelings and values.

Carried through to June 2012 to coincide with the end of the school year, the initiative was both well received from schools and from seniors in the community. It total, the storytelling project involved 4 schools, 700 students, 20 grandparents, and 300 stories. The 20 regular senior volunteers visited the library on a weekly basis to rehearse, prepare and tell the stories.

Beyond the sphere of education, intergenerational relations and inter-cultural exchange, the project's benefits also involved cognitive exercises that can serve as prevention for some mental illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease, as well as enhancing the seniors' self-esteem.

 
Promoter: Marcel·lí Domingo Library

Marcel·lí Domingo is the Municipal Library of Tortosa (Catalonia). Besides the usual book lending library services, they organise different activities for the community throughout the year.

 
Website: http://www.slideshare.net/bibliotecamd1/vincles-tt
 
Location: Tortosa
 
Contact: Irene Prades Ginovart : bmd@tortosa.cat

Footer