Comments - Golden Gangs Intergenerational Project

Lovely to see children helping each other out naturally and not making a big deal out of it.
Nice to see how they treated the friends with disabilities as normal.
Coleraine Golden Gang member , Female 70+

The children seemed keen to please us and pleased to see us, which was a nice surprise.
Didn't know what way they would react to us, but I am glad I took part.
Portrush Golden Gang member, Male 60+

The media paints such a bad picture of young ones today, I didn't know what to expect.
A wee girl gave me a hug, which was lovely.
Ballymoney Golden Gang member, Female 60+

I worried about what they would think of these old folks coming in, but I didn't get that at all.
Coleraine Golden Gang member , Female 80+

Thank you for everything that you done with us, it was good fun. Then when we done the acting I thought I was good at it.
The best thing we done was the true or false I loved it and so did my friends.
It was good to have you with us and I hope you come back again soon. Thank you.
Coleraine Primary school. P7 pupil

I liked the discussion bit because you got to talk about stuff you never will talk about.
I liked the way I learned that older people can be fun and not boring.
Garvagh Primary school, P6/7 pupil

It was fun learning about older people and how they act. I am ready for the future me in life.
Portstewart Primary school, P7 pupil

Golden Gang Participant Comments:

The top three benefits to being involved in the Golden Gang project

GG 1: Maintain contact with young people. Put my skills, life experiences to use now retired. Sense of contribution towards children's education and helping out the local community in N. Ireland.

GG 2: Getting to know how school children think of older people. Showing how we can mix at different ages. Getting more of an idea of young people as individuals in today's society.

GG 3; Getting to know young people better. Understand young people's ideas and skills.
Hoping they will learn something of the lives of older people and have a better understanding of how and what we are.

GG 4: Gain more confidence to communication with young people. Meeting other people and making new friends my own age. Like to learn how to pass on my traditional skills to young people.

GG 5: Better understanding of children's appreciation of how they see something. Being able to let them see how older people have so much to give to them. Enjoyment from the process, a new interest for me.