A project launched by two high school students in Ho Chi Minh City is inspiring teenagers across the city to connect with older generations.  

Twelfth-graders Vo Ngoc Doan Dung and Dang Mai Chi of the High School for the Gifted under the Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City established Elderly of Saigon, or ESG, in August 2019 with an aspiration to eliminate the generation gap between urban Generation Z youngsters and old people. 

Generation Z cohorts have the mid-to-late 1990s as their starting birth years and the early 2010s as their ending birth years, according to researchers and popular media use.

“I have learned so many life lessons from my grandparents," said Dung. 

"The ESG project aims to create a platform for young people to talk to the elderly and nurture compassion and understanding for their own loved ones so they can learn those same lessons.”

Together, ESG project members make gifts and hand them out to elderly residents across the city, using the exchange as a chance to make small talk and share stories which can be posted to ESG’s Facebook fanpage. 

Through Facebook, ESG has recently launched a competition entitled 'Listening,' which calls for submissions from young people nationwide of stories told by their grandparents. 

Lam Kim Dat, a 17-year-old student at the high school, said participating in the project has allowed him to go places and listen to interesting stories of times past. 

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