Intergenerational Climate Resilience Lab: Co-production with older adults and migrant students in Berlin
Rida E Fatima, Inés Paláez Robles, Jordyn Hilton, Kei Takahashi, Iva Miculinic, Soledad Mercado, Dr. Samia C Akhter-Khan
Loneliness and social isolation pose major challenges to public health. Climate-related environmental stressors, such as heatwaves and extreme weather events, can worsen psychological distress, cognitive vulnerability, and physical frailty. Research identifies older adults and individuals with migration experience as population disproportionately affected by these risks. Most existing interventions focus on individual-level factors and rarely examine how participatory approaches that position participants as active agents of change can reduce loneliness while strengthening resilience to psychosocial and environmental stressors. This student-led research project aims to examine how shared dialogue around climate-related challenges can foster social connectedness, mutual learning, and community-driven strategies to enhance both social and climate resilience. The project brought together older adults and students with migration backgrounds living in Berlin for a facilitated World Café workshop where they discussed loneliness, climate-related stress, and strategies to overcome these. A pop-up public exhibition was organized to present the resulting output. Data collection included pre- and post-workshop surveys, the World Café discussion, semi-structured interviews, field notes, and feedback collected during the follow-up exhibition. Qualitative data will be analysed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis, informed by a deductive coding approach. Preliminary findings suggest that collaborative knowledge production involving target groups directly can promote both social inclusion and positive climate adaptation. This study highlights the strong potential of participatory approaches to inform community- and policy-level strategies that strengthen social connectedness, climate resilience, and ultimately both human and planetary health
