The Warmth Of Our Hands

Changemaker: Marina Kornikhina

There is a big gap between young and older generations in Russian society nowadays. People of different age groups do not socialize enough and that leads to misunderstandings and failure to communicate. Young people do not understand all the advantages of the experience the representatives of older generation have and the second ones usually have a wrong image that the youths is apathetic to everything.

The youth is considered to include impolite people who care only about internet, TV and parties. And veterans are stereotypically thought to be grandfathers and grandmothers telling boring long stories and teaching youngsters how to lead their lives. But if we go deeper and establish good warm relationship between the generations, we can see that older people have been in this world for a while and have a lot of experience, on the other hand – youngsters are bright ambitious people who want to develop and learn more in this world. It is important not to lose that unique opportunity to communicate and learn more about the experience the older people who took part in the war have.

We plan to involve young people aged 12-16 into the following activities: knitting things (scout troops will meet weekly to learn how to knit and make things with their hands; school teachers and parents will teach us how to do that), presenting them as gifts for older people at the concert and collecting stories about the war. The young people will meet the veterans at the concert and over a cup of tea they will present the things they have made there. We already have a venue for the concert – it’ll take place at Volgograd Gymnasia #9 (High School), they let us use their hall, canteen and classrooms for free. Children from Volgograd youth clubs and young musicians will perform at the concert.