Young people in Canada need jobs. Seniors in the country feel isolated and lonely. Mima Mahmood wants to bring the two together to help solve both challenges.
Mahmood, 27, has created Bridge Generations, a 12-month pilot project that would pair unemployed or underemployed university graduates with isolated seniors for weekly companionship and support.
Her project was one of three winners of The Social Impact Challenge, a national initiative sponsored by the Foundations for Social Change to identify and support innovative solutions to some of Canada’s most pressing social issues.
The challenge invites Canadians to develop evidence-based ideas that can be piloted, measured and scaled to create meaningful social change.
The foundation awards $25,000 to the winning project and helps pilot it. The organization’s goal is to drive policy change and long-term, systems-level impact, its website says.
In an interview, Mahmood said she has long been interested in the challenges affecting seniors. That included working at a long-term care facility in Edmonton following her graduation from the University of Alberta with a degree in psychology.
“Since high school, I knew I wanted to work in this field,” she said. Her Muslim faith, with its high regard for elders, also played a role, she says.
She came up with the idea due to the large number of Canadian youth who are struggling to find work. In May, the unemployment rate for youth was 13.4 per cent, compared to an overall unemployment rate of 6.6 per cent..
And almost one in five Canadian seniors aged 65 and older report experiencing loneliness.
“My proposal focuses on the growing number of seniors who need companionship and social support,” Mahmood said, adding this need is “overlooked by policymakers.”
At the same time, she wants to address a gap many young people experience between graduating from university and finding their first job. This gap is typically one to three years, she says.
“It would provide them with meaningful employment and work experience,” she said.
Youth selected for the project would be trained to offer conversation and support to seniors on a regular basis, and to also be alert to the physical and mental needs of seniors — things like checking to ensure they are taking their medications, eating well and getting to their appointments.
“This could result in seniors being able to stay in their homes longer, and perhaps mean less emergency visits to hospitals,” she said.
At the same time, knowing someone was coming to visit “would give them something to look forward to.”
Right now, Mahmood’s task is to secure the funding she needs to launch the project in Edmonton. “That’s my next step,” she said.
Other winners of The Social Impact Challenge were Ressa McMullen, who created a project to support Indigenous representation in health care, and Meherab Ali and Omar Negmeldin, who created a project to connect Indigenous youth with culturally safe mental health care.
According to the Foundations for Social Change, the winning projects “address challenges affecting communities across Canada” and “highlight the growing role of community-led innovation in developing practical solutions to complex social issues.”
