The intergenerational approach brings together people of different ages and generations to work together with the aim of building more cohesive communities.

Within Community Space Challenge intergenerational work often emerges as a central theme as the young people involved make connections with both older and younger people within the community.

One example is the “Growing Together” project run under the Community Space Challenge banner by St George’s Community Hub in Birmingham. For this project young people working on Community Space Challenge extended an offer to their parents, grandparents and younger siblings to help them work on development of the St Georges Peace Garden.

Every week the session would begin with a hot Caribbean meal during which tasks were negotiated and allocated to family groups. The work then got underway – which included sowing seeds; digging and levelling beds for planting; building protective crop cages; and planting out courgettes, sweet corn, climbing beans, cucumbers, chilli peppers and aubergines.

The highlight of the project was the delight everyone took in harvesting the vegetables and eating together. The project culminated in an intergenerational quiz evening which saw people from across the generations within the community joining the families to celebrate.