North Edinburgh Intergenerational Project

Sacro’s North Edinburgh Intergenerational Project is a pilot aimed at assisting in reducing conflict and increasing understanding between generations.

The initiative is led by Tracy Stewart and funded through Lloyds TSB and internal Sacro funding. The project will run for a year initially.

What does the service offer?

• Mediation Interventions – the project will identify high conflict situations involving groups of young people within the North Edinburgh community and will use mediation techniques to intervene and assist parties to the conflict in finding a resolution.
   

• Community Events – the project will stage events targeted to increase understanding between generations, increase feelings of community safety and reduce youth offending in the areas where they are staged. These events will have a high local profile and will involve both young people and others from the community who are concerned/affected by intergenerational conflict.
   

• Conflict Resolution Workshops – the project will combine with local schools and youth agencies to run conflict resolution workshops for local people, including school-age children. The workshops will use a range of techniques to help participants identify the nature of conflict in their lives and to learn straightforward tools for minimising unproductive conflict.

How is the service accessed?

The service is no longer active.

Spanning the Generations

The Sacro-run North Edinburgh Intergenerational Project, based in Pilton, has embarked on a series of conferences and events aimed at addressing intergenerational conflict in the area.

The first conference, held on Thursday 26 March at the Muirhouse Millennium Centre, was hosted and co-ordinated by Service Team Leader, Tracy Stewart. Speakers and participants at the event included Radio Forth’s Grant Stott, long standing local Community Beat Officer, Iain Matthews and Cammy Day, Councillor for Edinburgh North.

Young people from Broughton High School mixed with older members of the local community and key stake holders to discuss issues affecting their area, be this young people feeling that they have nowhere to go or older people feeling intimidated by groups of youngsters on the street. Representatives from both generations commented that the conference had given them a greater understanding and respect for the different generations that they didn’t have previously. Hannah Turnbull a student at Broughton High School noted that, “nobody owns the streets, people, whoever they are, have the right to not feel intimidated on them”, classmate Marie Gilmour agreed and felt that “communication was the way forward”.

The next event will be held on the 26 September at Forthquarter Park in Granton from 12 – 4pm. The event will celebrate the communities of North Edinburgh by bringing people of all ages together for a day of fun. There will be plenty to entertain the the whole family and a host of organisations on hand to offer information on their services and programmes.

A film about Intergenerational Conflict has been made by a group of young people from the area and this will be screened on the day. This will be followed by a discussion between the young filmmakers and the local community, focussing on ways in which they can work towards combatting Intergenerational Conflict.