An effort to bridge the gap between two generations — children and the elderly, a doctor from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has launched a unique initiative to enable children to learn life’s lessons from elderly people.

Healthy Aging India, an NGO initiated by Dr Prasun Chatterjee, Assistant Professor Geriatrics, AIIMS, has launched an Inter-Generational Learning Centre (IGLC) in which the senior citizens are made to connect with children of classes six, seven and eight from schools run by the government and civic bodies.

Chatterjee told the newspaper, the New Indian Express that the existing education system does not have much scope to encourage education intelligence in children. Also, it doesn’t provide itself to understand emotion, regulate emotion, self-regulation and empathy.

Studies have shown that senior citizens are emotionally much more flexible than younger ones, because of their experience in the ways of the world. They help us to direct and channel our emotions towards positive ends and also teach us ways to relieve stress and rebound back from failures.

The initiative was launched at Purva Madhyamik Vidyalaya in Sector 12, Noida, which is now extended to another school in Greater Noida and five run by New Delhi Municipal Corporation and Kerala School.

The success stories reported at these institutions has enabled this initiative to spread to neighbouring Jharkhand and the NGO has tied up with the state government as part of a MoU. Most of schools chosen or in the process of being chosen to be part of the initiative have more children mostly from tribal households.

Chatterjee also said five such schools will be turned into residential ones so that tribal children get more time to spend with elderly people. Senior citizens who have agreed to be a part of this initiative are trained for two months before taking up a teaching job at the school.