A reason to talk: how new interactions can bring people together and bridge divides

Please note: this post is 107 months old and The Cares Family is no longer operational. This post is shared for information only

'There's such a gap between the generations these days. Only at weddings and funerals do you see all the generations together – little children, young adults, older people – but that used to be quite normal. People used to have more reason to talk; before, when you wanted to learn something you had to ask someone to teach you, whereas you can find it on the internet now instead. But you learn more from speaking to people.'

We couldn't sum up the issues that North London Cares hopes to address any better than how older neighbour Elke has described them here. Many of us consider our social circles to be diverse, but age is an aspect of diversity that often gets overlooked. We work and play in circles that mostly consist of people close to our own age and background, and in doing so we miss out on the huge benefits that intergenerational contact brings.

My role with North London Cares takes me all over Camden and Islington, meeting older neighbours in their homes and at social clubs. I'm constantly encountering interesting perspectives, historical insights and personal anecdotes from our older neighbours that I wouldn't hear from people closer to my own age, and in totally different turns of phrase and wording. Time and time again our volunteers highlight how valuable they find this aspect of their experience, and how much they'd been missing out on this before being part of North London Cares.

As Elke says, learning from books or the internet is easy, but there's a depth of experience and connection that can only be gained through personal interaction. Through both our Social Clubs and Love Your Neighbour programmes our younger and older neighbours have shared skills, stories, games and laughs. And in doing so, they're bridging that gap...