A space of existential growth for both elderly and children

Abstract

Western civilization achieved a social order founded on the separation of individuals with similar characteristics (adults, children and, in the services for children, further separation by age, ills, elderly people concentrated in dedica-ted buildings ...), reducing to invisibility and silence a huge crowd of people. These include the elderly and children, confined in an orderly manner in "social containers", or disorderly pu-shed at the margins of society and sociality. This leads to a dispersion of knowledge and resources that the individual suffers as the en-tire community. Conversely areas of contami-nation and sharing for people with different ori-gins demographic, generational, cultural back-grounds, create the conditions to grow the at-tention that mutual education, social policy, human services should help to promote.
This assay introduces the experience of the Centre in Piacenza for Elderly and Children (ABI: Anziani e Bambini Insieme). This is a complex and composite service, with separa-ted and common areas for guests of three con-nected structures: a retirement home, a day care centre and a kindergarden.