Together Old & Young to Build All Age Friendly Communities!

Through sharing experiences young children and older adults have fun, learn from each other and develop meaningful relationships

Professional Development for Intergenerational Learning

Building the capacities and skills of early childhood and social care practitioners to design intergenerational activities

An International Community of Practice

TOY facilitates and stimulates learning and exchange on intergenerational practice in Europe and beyond

News

Intergenerational experiment reaches Dutch television

April 18, 2019

TOY for Inclusion features on European Commission newsletter

April 5, 2019

Young and old defy loneliness in violent Rio favela

March 8, 2019

About us

Together Old and Young – TOY: young children and older adults learning together

The TOY project was initiated and is promoted by International Child Development Initiatives - ICDI.

The purpose of the TOY Programme is to promote intergenerational learning and create new possibilities for senior citizens and young children to learn together and benefit from each others’ company. We believe that this is more important than ever before across the world. People are living longer but older adults and young children are having less and less contact with each other. Parents and grandchildren are migrating to cities and countries far away from grandparents. >> read more

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Blog

How the TOY online course transformed our practice

The opportunity to participate in the TOY Online Course inspired Belfast Nursery Manager, Sharon Malcolm to transform the Nursery’s intergenerational experience from being a one-off visit for young children to a Care Home for older adults to being an integral part of the Nursery’s practice. Read her blog post below.

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An intergenerational oral history project in Greece

“From one generation to the next”

Older peoples’ role as guardians of knowledge, traditions and skills is central in vibrant learning societies, and is recognised in one of the TOY Goals. Young children too have a role in preserving cultural histories. In this blog post, Greek oral historian Kyriaki Fotiadou writes about a project, which connected young and old through an oral history journey.