PenARC Seminar: Iona Lawrence, Fostering Intergenerational Connections
In this talk, Iona Lawrence shares some of her observations and conclusions from her recent Churchill Fellowship which took her across Austria, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands in search of intergenerational activists and change makers.
Speaker Biography: Iona Lawrence is a freelance strategist, campaigner and extra pair of hands for charities and nonprofits up and down the country. In 2016 Iona set up the Jo Cox Foundation in memory of her friend Jo Cox MP through which she campaigned to appoint the world's first Minister for Loneliness.
In 2023 Iona Lawrence completed her Churchill Fellowship. Travelling across Austria, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, she spent two months meeting intergenerational activists and change makers to better understand what more can be done in the UK to boost and bolster intergenerational connections. Her findings offer a glimpse of an intergenerational future and a clear view of what is holding us back from getting there - you can read them here.
Alongside her work on loneliness and social connection, Iona is Co-Founder of The Decelerator (https://decelerator.org.uk/) which supports nonprofit organisations and individuals to consider and design closures, mergers, CEO transitions, programming ends, and all sorts of endings as just part of the everyday life of organisations and inevitable cycles of change in civil society.
Iona is keen to offer support or advice to those wanting to work in the intergenerational research and connections space. You can make contact with her via her website: https://www.ionaconsultancy.com/
Find out more about Churchill Fellowships here: https://churchillfellowship.org/