Kupuna and Keiki Together: Giving Back Mentoring
Giving Back is a Hawaii non-profit agency committed to fostering intergenerational relationships through mentoring, enhancing the individual lives of both the giver and receiver, while creating vibrant and vital opportunities for active elder volunteers (age 55+) to ‘give back’ to benefit their neighborhoods and communities.
Giving Back’s intergenerational mentoring program trains senior citizen volunteers in integrative movements to become mentors to children, teaching them kinesthetic activities that enhance learning, concentration, and memory.
Linking the older and younger generations in this way provides numerous benefits for both groups…and for our communities.
Seniors report experiencing physical and cognitive benefits from the exercises and an improved quality of life as a result of their relationships with the children. Children demonstrate enhanced reading ability on standardized tests, increased focus and calm, reduced hyperactivity, and they benefit wonderfully from sweet relationships with their Kupuna.
Below are two testimonials:
“The relationships that developed between the mentors, teachers, and children were perhaps the best and most beautiful thing to watch. The mentors shared their life stories and their knowledge of many subjects with the students. At recess, many other students came around to talk and share with the mentors. They became a valued asset on our campus.”–Special Education Coordinator
“Ms. Peterson has worked with senior citizens at Kaunoa and we have had the extreme good fortune of having 12 of them come to school to work with our students…the results of which have been outstanding. I can’t say enough about the ‘Kupuna and Keiki Together’ program and the positive effects it has had on our faculty and students.”–School Principal
Currently, Karen Peterson and Harriet Witt are developing a curriculum that will be nature based, in which we will be using specific body movements to mirror the cycles of nature. There will be 12 modules that can be done in a group setting or by a grandparent/grandchild pair. The modules are perfect for senior centers, parks, after-school programs, community centers, school gardens, intergenerational programs, and in grandparents’ homes.
For information: Karen Peterson, www.GivingBackMentoring.org
