During a community volunteer program, I was in charge of doing a cognitive test to the participants from public. There, I met a 93-year-old grandmother. Even though, after the test, she was tested to have dementia, but throughout the test, she wasn't talking anything about her memory or her health. Instead, she kept repeating four simple, yet heartbreaking words: "I miss my grandchild". What if "I miss my grandchild" was not just her, but the others as well? It is sad to say that, more than 54% of our elderly have absolutely no intergenerational exchange with children. When they are socially isolated, they can face an 88% higher risk of developing muscle loss, and a 50% higher risk of dementia. 

Sometimes, what keeps a person alive inside is not medicine, but being remembered by someone who chooses to show up. Stronger Intergen is a continuous intergenerational hub that brings university students and elderly together to turn “I miss my grandchild” into “Someone is here with me.”

"Stronger Intergen" turns "I miss my grandchild" into "Someone is here with me" by building a permanent intergenerational hub that connects university students with the elderly through structured play, movement, and meaningful interaction. We strive to raise awareness among university students about the importance of respecting the wisdoms of the elderly and connect with their own family and to make this project permanent in UM's Volunteer Program.

To make this realistic, we will first start small by having 4 pilot session throughing bringing 6 university students to Legend Care Centre every Sunday from Aug 1 - Sept 1. Together with the elderly, they play games that are designed to improve memory, muscle strength and mood, as well as visit the centre and really understand how the elderly are going through and develop empathy. Continuous collection of data and feedback are conducted through validated tests or interviews to evaluate and refine the sessions.

After our 4‑week pilot sesions + refinement of the sessions, we will submit our project to University of Malaya’s Centre of Integral Learning (CITRA) UM with volunteer training materials and classes to become an official volunteer module. There, "Stronger Intergen" volunteer program can become long term permanent project whereby more students get to know the difficulties of the elderly and appreciate more with their own family and expand to more nursing homes across Malaysia.

Before and After Program

1) Elderly 

Before and after each month 

a) Loneliness Score

• UCLA version 3 loneliness test (Reduction in loneliness by showing a decrease in the loneliness score - Showing the effectiveness of having intergenerational bonding helps reduce loneliness)

b) Cognitive Status

• Visual Cognitive Assessment Test (Improve in cognition level by showing an increase in the score)

c) Muscle Strength

• Hand grip test (Improve in muscle strength by showing an increase on the screen of the hand grip dynamometer)
• Time Up and Go test (Improve in muscle strength by showing a decrease in the time taken to stand up from a chair and go to and from a distance of 3 metre)

After each session

a) Simple questionnaires (To know the effectiveness of the session)

• How much did you enjoy in today’s session?(Scale 1-5 with picture face) 
• Did you feel your body was more active today? (Yes/No)
• Did you enjoy interacting with the students? (Yes/No)

b) Trainers observation 

• Improve in engagement
• Improve in recalling
• Improve in emotion

2) Volunteers

Before and after each session

a) Simple questionnaires (To know the effectiveness of the session in changing their perception towards elderly and the engagement of the session) 

• Perception towards elderly
• Enjoyment score (1-5 scale)
• What is learnt?
• How do they feel?
• What to improve?

b) Interacting session

• Interviews randomly with elderly (With approval from the interviewee first)