Advancing Community Cohesion in Chicago with Grandmothers 

What if we spent more time engaging and connecting with people across generations to build a future of resilience, community connectedness, and mutual aid? Can we capture the wisdom of older women in order to address our most pressing needs?

With JPA Chicago, the Grandmother Collective has supported the development of a Grandmother's Project. We provided trainings and grandmother-led models to help JPA introduce grandmother-led programming into schools in North Lawndale in Chicago where the organization currently works. Grandmother leaders from the neighborhood led the process of a designing a project that met a need -- to help kids feel more local pride and to use intergenerational teamwork to build greater community cohesion. This contributes to the mission set forth over 120 years ago by JPA's founder, Jane Addams, to improve the social and emotional well-being and functioning of vulnerable children so they can reach their fullest potential at home, in school, and in their communities.

Making Grandmother Changemakers

We know two things to be true – communities only exist when people participate and the more purpose and connection someone feels, the deeper their sense of wellbeing. 

One of the main objectives of the Grandmother Collective is to help highlight the changemaking capacity of grandmothers everywhere. By grandmothers, we mean all women with experience and wisdom who can provide a grandmotherly lens to a societal challenge. We want to build this capacity by enabling older women to not only recognize their unique social statuses and power, but also to harness it to build up communities and develop their purpose. 

With Ashoka we are developing an “intergenerational toolkit” to support grandmothers - and other grandparents changemakers - with practical ideas for engaging with changemaking or starting a program or initiative in their area. We focus firstly on encouraging them to self-organize and/or connect with other initiatives in their region. Secondly, we provide topical ideas for grandmother leaders to host convening events and conversations in their communities that will empower them to develop local solutions to local challenges. 

After the storm: Grandmothers working to repair the social fabric of an Appalachian community 

What if we spent more time engaging and connecting with people across generations to build a future of resilience, community connectedness, and mutual aid? Can we capture the wisdom of older women in order to address our most pressing needs?

Letcher County, in Central Appalachia in Eastern Kentucky, has long been a region which celebrates and proactively preserves Appalachian community and culture. During the 1960s War on Poverty, a surge of organizations focused on celebrating local community traditions while battling the crippling stereotypes that biased many against people from the region. Despite its economic challenges, the social fabric and resilience of people was a strong source of pride. As Gwen Johnson of the Hemphill Community Center, one of three centers serving Letcher County residents, says, “People from the region have a homing beacon and always seem to find their way back.”  

However, the last two decades have radically changed the picture of this resilient and proud community. Based at the site of a former mining camp, the area where Hemphill Community Center operates has experienced compounding hardships - from systemic poverty, the opioid crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, and historic floods which decimated homes and businesses in June of 2022. These hardships have resulted in a “brain drain” where many young people have left to find opportunities in other parts of the state and country. The population loss has been especially acute in the last 10 years. Letcher County saw a 12.1% population loss between 2010 and 2020, a period that was also marked by significant decrease in coal production, an economic mainstay. Grandmother Collective (GMC) will support Hemphill Community Center to develop a community action project co-led by grandmothers and other senior females and focused on rebuilding the social fabric of the community. The grandmothers and the community center will design and define a program for the center that repairs a social fabric that has been frayed by the economic, health, and environmental impacts of the last several decades. Celebrating Applachian culture, while also driving key changes that can renew its vibrancy and connectedness, is a key driver of this program.