Youth Records Old Wisdom - Jamaica

This school-based project used interpersonal communication & community involvement to capture part of Jamaica's history before it was lost forever. Personal contact between young people & the ageing population had a two-fold effect: It gave Jamaica's youth great respect for the excellent memory & subsequent history of this segment of the community & it restored the pride of ageing for the elderly. The use of tape recorders served to "bridge the opening gap in comprehension between young urban & aged rural", leaving valuable resources for future generations & a trail of new friendships.

Ageing, Youth, Population, Education

This project evolved out of the knowledge that "modernization has emphasized the education of the young & relegated many older people into a kind of second-class citizenship, unable to cope with new tecknology". Under the supervision of teachers, children from urban schools were given tape recorders and sent to remote rural areas to meet & record elderly community members who stored much of the traditional culture in their memories. Legends, songs, dances, children's games, diet & roles in society were some of the recollections passed on to youths who then understood that their sophisticated urban sytle was not necessarily the best way to live. Although the project was expensive due to the cost of tape recorders, tapes & a system of archiving, the end product of valuable resources now treasured in the national museum was well worth the cost. The new friendships and rectified false impressions about ageing & traditional national culture/values was also a welcome by-product of the project.