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Multi-Generational Centers Serve as Fun and Supportive Meeting Places for Young and Old Alike

Ursula von der Leyen at a Center for Young and Old in the city of Langen that is part of a federally funded multi-generational project, Photo: dpa

Several generations used to live together under one roof, but this has become the exception rather than the rule in mobile modern societies characterized by constant change and smaller family units.

Community centers offering a wide range of services and possibilities for new forms of social cohesion among several generations could be one solution to the isolation felt by many in modern society – from children in need of guidance and care to time-strapped working and single parents to active older adults seeking new contacts and challenges.

Enter Germany’s Mehrgenerationenhäuser, or “multi-generational homes”. They should provide “reliable points of contact for all generations”, Germany’s Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in the northern German town of Salzgitter at the November 2006 opening of the country’s first multi-generational center.

“Earlier the large family was made strong by the principle of mutual help,” the minister said. “Today too, young families and older people need to know that there is a network on which they can rely.”

The Salzgitter Mehrgenerationenhaus was the prototype for an initiative that aims to provide care and support for the family around the clock. The German government has planned to set up 500 of these establishments nationwide – one in each urban municipality and each Landkreis or administrative county. Each center will receive 40,000 euros (more than USD 50,000) a year from the federal government, which allocated 98 million euros for the project to be used over the first five years.

The basic idea is to bring the tradition of several generations living together from the private to the public sphere. Multi-generational centers are open, drop-in centers where people of all ages can meet and help one another – just as they used to in the extended family of the past. Whether they are run by small or large initiatives, parishes or family centers, all of these facilities pursue the same goal: Promoting cooperation and mutual support among generations and establishing a local market for services which people of various ages really need.

“With attractive offers for all generations multi-generational centers form a regional network,” said von der Leyen. “They are like bee hives, full of activity and communication. The honey that they produce is mutual assistance, which is produced when people bring their competencies into play.”

“There has never been such a healthy and well-educated older generation,” she said, adding that it was necessary to make use of this generation’s knowledge for the benefit of the whole society, claiming that the “silver economy” was a concept that should not be underestimated.

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