No matter what your age, everyone has something to offer, a knowledge or insight that benefits multiple generations.
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A recent conversation, facilitated by The Daily Advertiser, showed the importance of knowledge sharing across generations.
It was beautiful to see a natural conversation flow between Matilda and Mary, 17 and 79 years, respectively, but each with their own unique experiences and opinions.
These are smart, educated women and the similarities and differences in their experiences, often the same but had decades apart, was fascinating to hear.
There is a 62-year age gap between these two women, who were relatively unknown to each other before last week.
But the conversation was one of respect and admiration.
If more of our youth and seniors had chats like this, imagine what we could accomplish.
Our children or youth are our future so we should be giving them a say on what happens in our community.
But our seniors have lived through some trying times and can offer advice to our youth on how to deal with hardship and triumph.
There is much our youth can learn about love from the older generations, who tended to get married and stay married for longer.
Ultimately, they are also the ones who have shaped our community and our workforce into what it is today, a community and workforce our youth are preparing to enter very soon.
Seniors Week and Youth Week have been celebrated separately for years but it makes sense to combine them.
The Fresh Festival in April will incorporate these generations in a month-long program of events for the community.
We should not discount someone because they are perceived to be too old or not old enough to know better.
There is something to be learned from everyone, all opinions matter.
Take the time to talk to younger or older generations in your family or your community, listen to their stories, learn from their experiences.
Get into heated debates about politics, love, music, literature and the news and use the information gathered to help yourself or others.
What are the issues you’d like to see tackled by multiple generations?
How do you think, or want, our community to benefit from such a festival?
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