National Regional Challenge
Intergenerational Connection
How do your region's generations learn from each other to build something stronger?
Regions that find ways to connect their generations don’t just preserve what they have, they build something new.
How does yours do it?
Inspiring this challenge
Regional communities carry deep wells of knowledge, networks, and experience in their longer-term residents.
They also have younger people who see things differently, want to contribute, and are deciding whether to stay or go.
When those two things find each other, communities gain something they can’t get any other way. When they don’t, the knowledge walks out the door and the young people follow.
The communities that have found genuine ways to connect their generations, not through tokenism or consultation, but through real shared purpose and decision making, are doing something worth talking about.
Practical considerations
Intergenerational connection doesn’t always happen by itself. Older residents hold institutional memory and relational networks that take decades to build and aren’t easily transferred. Younger people and newcomer families need a reason to engage that feels relevant to their lives. And the organisations that could bridge the gap, schools, community groups, employers, councils, often operate in separate silos without a shared agenda.
Tell us how your organisation, town or region is addressing this challenge and be part of national action.
Come on Australia – show us yours.
Show australia how your region does it
We are looking for communities, organisations, and individuals who have found genuine ways to connect generations around shared purpose and are willing to share what they learned. Tell us how:
- You’ve created something that brought older and younger residents together around a shared purpose and it changed what was possible.
- You’ve given younger people a genuine role in shaping how your community works, not consultation, actual decision making.
- You’ve found ways to transfer knowledge, skills, or networks from longer term residents to newer or younger ones in ways that stuck.
- You’ve helped a young person or family find a reason to stay or return because there was something worth being part of.
- You tried something, it didn’t work, and you know exactly why.