ANIMATE provides a cross-generation community based service exchange system where companies employing qualified older adults can offer workshops and learning experiences to the younger professionals of other companies and in turn get back the experience that they have provided as working hours or weeks from the workforce available in the community companies. This would enable the transfer of knowledge in the local network between aged professionals and younger or newly employed workers and this will also keep senior workers more active and motivated in their workplace as they are involved in stimulating environments with younger professionals. End users will test an initial prototype which will be refined in successive iterations (prototypes) with the observations that they provide so end users will be involved in all the project phases. More than 100 test will be carried in UK and Romania with elderly working and unemployed between 60-75 and with companies.
Objectives
The project ANIMATE born with the aim of using new technologies to address one of the main problems of generational relay: the loss of knowledge by a lack of adequate transmission of experience among the older generations and younger generations. ANIMATE also seeks to solve a problem that affects people of a certain age: the feeling of not being useful, due to be jobless or have a job that does not conform to their current abilities and interests, leads to absence of ambition and a sedentary lifestyle. Moreover ANIMATE aims to help the development of the manufacturing sector across Europe.
Expected results and impact
ANIMATE is designed to maximise the recuperative and preventive effects of occupation on health and well-being. The solution highlights the important role of qualified older adults in the labour market and targets the preservation of their extended knowledge. The ANIMATE project aims to create a European wide community of intergenerational knowledge transfer which will bring together older and younger generations across the continent for the exchange of expertise and know-how.
