Creating intergenerational links with seniors

From August 21 to 25, the association 1 Lettre 1 Sourire took up residence at the heart of the festival Rock en Seine, in Paris. Set up in the "ACT" area dedicated to citizen and solidarity initiatives, far from the hustle and bustle of the music stages, our team set up a warm stand in the association's colors, attracting curious festival-goers eager to get involved.

Our objectives were simple: to raise awareness among festival-goers of the isolation of our elders, and invite them to write caring letters to isolated seniors. Away from the noise of the concert stages, festival-goers were able to take a moment to relax, and share a little of themselves through pretty yellow letters.

In a festive, musical and supportive atmosphere, our stand met with notable success, as 888 letters as well as a few financial donations were collected!!! Our presence at the festival also brought us a great deal of visibility, attracting many festival-goers to get involved as volunteers and ambassadors and thus join our beautiful human and solidarity adventure. We also had the opportunity to take part in the CareNews podcast "Ceux qui font", a great opportunity for us to present our association, explain how it works and share the values of solidarity and benevolence that guide it. 

With new letters in our pockets and a growing community, our adventure continues, carried by all the participating writers and a community always on hand :)

This Thursday, April 4, Lucie Reyx embarks on a bicycle tour of France and Belgium to meet our senior citizens. In civic service with 1 Lettre 1 Sourire since last October, she will carry our colors until the end of July accompanied by her bicycle. She will thus become our official representative, a roving letter carrier, promoting the epistolary link with our elderly and distributing letters in all the structures she passes through.

At each of her stops, she'll be organizing letter-writing workshops for schoolchildren in the morning, distributing kindly letters in the afternoon, and then exchanging ideas with seniors at intergenerational dinners and evenings in the evenings at the structures for the elderly that will be hosting her for the night.
Her Tour de France means  101 stages across France and Belgium, around 4,000 kilometers of cycling covered in 4 months, along which she will meet around 3,000 schoolchildren and 6,000 seniors.

The aim through this project is to combat social isolation via two main levers. Firstly, by creating intergenerational links: Lucie will indeed share convivial moments around workshops linked to the letter, inviting schoolchildren and seniors to take part together. Her aim is to create links between senior citizens' facilities and local schools, setting up twinning arrangements along the way. Secondly, Lucie will be sharing her journey throughout the four months, promoting the idea of maintaining intergenerational links with everyone she meets. If you'd like to keep up with her, feel free to follow her instagram account: @a.bicyclette_ !