Our task, as we understood it, was to get teen leaders involved in Citizen University’s Youth Collaboratory excited about working alongside adults to create change — what we call cogeneration. As it turns out, teens in the program were already excited about...
Purpose Prize
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Want to Jumpstart a Conversation About Collaborating With Teens?
When CoGenerate and Citizen University launched a project to deepen cogenerational ties, our goal was to get teens excited about working alongside older adults to create change. What we discovered surprised us. Teens didn’t need convincing to work across generations....
Reinventing the American University for a Multigenerational Future
In an episode of this season of Hacks, the Emmy-winning intergenerational comedy, the older comedian Deborah Vance returns to her alma mater (UC Berkeley) to receive an honorary degree. Shortly after arriving, a video containing offensive jokes she delivered early in...
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Wilma Kirchhofer-Marbury
Purpose Prize Fellow 2009
Kirchhofer works to promote healthy lifestyle behaviors among youth through health education that involves leadership training and community service to local health agencies.
As Georgia schools face cuts to physical and health education, Kirchhofer-Marbury is arming kids with the knowledge they need to lead healthy lives, including: health education, leadership training, service opportunities, and exposure to global health issues. Her organization, Youth Leadership for Global Health, or YLGH, encourages youth to become “peer educators” and positively influence others by sharing what they’ve learned.Kirchhofer-Marbury believes such a strategy has a ripple effect throughout the community and the world. As part of the program, youth compare and contrast health promotion in another culture through an organized trip abroad. “There is an inner gratification that comes when the light of understanding and the commitment to share that understanding comes from one of the youth in YLGH,” says Kirchhofer-Marbury, who started the organization in 2001 after retiring from The Coca-Cola Co., where she managed employee wellness programs. YLGH trains more than 150 youth annually and has expanded to include affiliate groups in New Jersey; Tennessee; Delaware; Johannesburg, South Africa; Salvador, Brazil; and Ghana, West Africa.