The project aimed to empower older people by providing them with a creative platform to express their life stories and cultural heritage through traditional textile crafts, thereby fostering personal fulfilment and reducing social isolation. By bringing them into contact with younger participants, we also sought to promote intergenerational exchange, ensuring that the knowledge and experiences of older people were shared and valued by all generations.
We launched Creative Crafts to build on the achievements of the previous "R YOU 65" project, combining the promotion of intergenerational dialogue with the preservation of cultural heritage. The project addressed the fundamental needs of various groups: 1. Older adults (55+): many participants were living in isolation. We provided a “therapeutic haven” to harness their skills in textile arts, reduce isolation and restore a sense of purpose; 2. Young people (18–35): in a hyper-digitalised world, they expressed a need to rediscover tangible craftsmanship and the wisdom of their roots through interaction with older people; On the cultural front, we addressed the risk of losing traditional craftsmanship by promoting its active transmission and reinterpretation in contemporary contexts.