Rural rocks!

Why are we implementing this TC?

After urbanization process, there was a drastic reduction of rural areas, all long important resources for people. People that are living in rural and isolated areas, cope with difficulties for basic needs, such as job, education, health and transportation as reported by all of our partner organisations. When they are compared to those living in cities, disadvantageous
youngsters are in need of more support than others to build their future, because, even if are trying to create value according to their capacity, they don’t have enough knowledge on how to do this. We can easily see that youth workers coming from those areas (and their leaders)dealing with those young people that are suffering this deficiency nearly every day.

AIM

Our TC is designed to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes of youth workers working with the main target group: young people in rural and suburban areas struggling with social exclusion, poverty, unemployment and so, develop in them a new spirit for challenges and initiatives.
We want to let those youth workers understand the importance of reflection that must become concrete action, starting for example by re-evaluation and developing of their ideas, to be used in a functional and sustainable way in their local area with the other youngsters during their youth work.

OBJECTIVES

• Analyze the problems of those living in rural areas but also see the potentiality of their development
• Improve youth workers attitudes by providing them with methods, tools and motivation techniques, which will enable them to work efficiently with the target groups in the rural areas
• Support youth work in rural areas, to improve its quality
• Reflect on sustainable work and rural entrepreneurship possibilities exploiting rural resources
• Give information about Erasmus+ Program and give them opportunity to make new projects, give to the NGOs working in rural areas the opportunity to share their experiences, and establish an inter-organizational network 
• To contribute to the recognition and visibility of good practice and new methods/strategies used to prevent/deal with youngsters suffering problems derived from living in rural areas

APPROACH
We are eager to strengthen the feeling of youth workers’ and the youth’s active citizenship in rural areas. We are trying to provide youth workers with tools to foster inclusion of the youngsters living isolated in the society. European Union also gives great importance to providing people living in rural areas with an equality of opportunity and establishes programs for these people, that’s why we want implement this TC.
In addition, these people realize that they are not forgotten and feel that they are members of the society. Specially, we want to improve the feeling of solidarity and tolerance among the youth in European Union to improve the social congruity.
Combining Youth workers from different countries will foster intercultural dialogue,centered in the problems that affect people living in rural areas with whom they work with daily, understanding that those issues are so similar to each other’s and fostering their feeling of solidarity. We think that nonformal education plays a great role in this.

PARTICIPANTS

• Teachers, social workers, youth workers, peer-leaders, youth organization/club activists, scout leaders, educators, etc.
• Working with young people (13-30 years old; not children) in schools and/or in a non-formal education system (as volunteers or paid workers) on a regular basis
• Ready to organize follow-up activities using the experience from this training (individually or together with another person from the same country) within 3 months after the training
• Ready to prepare 1 post/article for publicity to share results from the training and applying it in their daily youth work
• Committed to learning and working together for quite long hours every day
• Aged 18+
• Good skills of communication in English