Piacenza.- On one side of a glass wall, three small children in a day care center flattened Play-Doh with plastic rollers. On the other hand, three old women from a nursing home were hitting the glass to get their attention.
“Let’s say hello to nonni,” the children’s teacher said before leading them through a door that connected the two rooms.
The children stopped to play with the magnifying glass of an 89-year-old woman who had been using it to read obituaries. Then the young children, all 2 years old, rode an elevator upstairs, where residents of the nursing home were waiting to read picture books to them in a small library.
“It’s something extraordinary,” said one of the residents, Giacomo Scaramuzza, 100. “People think that we are from two different worlds, but it is not true. We are in the same world. And maybe we’ll give them something, too. There is an exchange.
Piacenza’s Elderly and Children Together, an experimental project in the country’s most famous region for early childhood education and care for the elderly, seeks to connect the vulnerable at both ends of life. But it also puts Italy’s two existential challenges under one roof.
Italy’s population is aging and shrinking at a faster rate than the West, forcing the country to adjust to a booming elderly population that puts it at the forefront of a global demographic trend experts call the “silver tsunami.” But it faces a demographic double whammy, with a dramatically plummeting birth rate among the lowest in Europe. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said that Italy is “destined to disappear” unless it changes.
This month, Meloni’s government approved a new “Pact for the Elderly,” which she said would lay the groundwork for health and social reforms for Italy’s growing elderly population. “They represent the heart of society and a heritage of values, traditions and precious wisdom,” Meloni said, adding that the law would prevent the marginalization and “parking” of the elderly in institutions.
“Caring for the elderly is taking care of all of us,” he said.
