Rural Rules!

Youth exchange “Rural Rules!”

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[info]The E-booklet of ‘Rural Rules’ may be found HERE. It presents new rural entrepreneurship ideas, workshops that were done during the youth exchange, as well as the material that could be used in similar projects across Europe.[/info]

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Youngsters meet in Lithuania to discuss reviving of rural areas

[image align=”left” lightbox=”true” title=”Logo of the project” icon=”zoom” size=”small”]https://refugees.lt/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/RR-logo.jpg[/image]Many of the European Union’s rural areas face a common challenge, as their capacity to create high-quality, sustainable jobs has fallen behind that of urban areas. Generally, incomes are lower in rural regions than in towns or cities and there are fewer job opportunities. Marginalized youth living in rural areas have a problem getting good jobs and continued education to get ahead in life and contribute to society. One of the obvious solutions for them is to move to the city and try to get a job there. Even if they do manage to get one, it is usually not the best paying one. However, these marginalized youth possess one asset, which isn’t being explored by anyone to its fullest potential – their familiarity with the rural area that they live in. Starting a business in rural areas would be a great vehicle for capitalizing on this asset that they already have. In general, rural areas account only to 15.3% of GDP on average in the EU, which is not too much when we think about the numbers of people living outside the cities.

Rural Rules! Erasmus+ youth exchange in Lithuania

All this made NGOs from Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Turkey, Lithuania and Croatia unite and create a project for youth to expand their knowledge about business opportunities in rural areas. As a result, Erasmus+ youth exchange “Rural Rules” was held in Stasiūnai village (60 km away from Vilnius), Lithuania on September 11-19. The project aimed to raise awareness of participants existing asset, provide them with the skills on how to identify the business opportunities that exist in rural areas & develop the idea. After the exchange, they stand ready to contribute to the local communities. One of the biggest expected impacts from this is that they could also create jobs for other people in rural areas and especially youth with fewer opportunities. Apart from that, they could also help inspire other marginalized youth to think about their own rural businesses.

Workshops and activities

36 participants arrived to beautiful Stasiūnai village and took part in a variety of workshops and activities. They have also visited Rumsiskes Open Air Museum, where entire buildings and artifacts from towns, villages and farmsteads from all over Lithuania have been brought to and reassembled. It helped the participants understand Lithuanian culture and rural traditions better. They have also had an opportunity to engage with interesting guests: founder of “Dalios sodyba”, who is a successful rural entrepreneur and owner of the ‘restaurant in the field’. Finally, the participants took part in how-to sessions, business simulation in rural environment and business idea contest.

Results

Together participants have created many solutions how to prevent unemployment in rural areas and what should be done to improve infrastructure there. All the results will be published later online and in the e-booklet of the project. During the exchange they have learnt a lot about rural entrepreneurship and possibilities of starting their own business. Most importantly, in groups they have developed their ideas for rural business. It is our aspiration that it will inspire them to use the ideas, create start-ups, develop rural areas in their regions and motivate other to do the same.
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Amazing memories from the project.


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Participants & Their Rural Slogans:

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Check our Facebook Galleries for all the photos of the project:

Here you can also see some of the works done by the participants during the project. If you want more materials, you can contact us.


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Participant videos

During the project, participants had an opportunity to express themselves via video creation – commercial shooting for rural businesses. You can have a look at the videos below or in our Youtube Channels (Here & Here) and Facebook Page.

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Video #1 One World Village


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Video #2 BioPotato Commercial
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Video #3 Rowture Commercial
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Video #4 Litmilk Commercial
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Video #5 Dalios Sodyba Commercial

[info]You can find project-related material below. Use it to organise similar initiatives across Europe!

  • Info pack & the schedule of the project.
  • Marketing Workshop –  HERE you can find materials about marketing and effective selling.
  • Video Afternoon with movies related to the rural entrepreneurship.
  • World Cafe Discussion – here you can see all the topics discussed during the coffee break.
  • World Cafe Answers – here you can find the answers to the topics discussed.
  • The e-booklet with results of the project might be found HERE
  • Business Simulation in Rural Area – in this workshop we included all important bodies for rural communities: Church, Local Municipality, Local Activists, fresh Start Up and Big Corporation.
  • How to solve rural problems – solutions made by the participants during the project.
  • Rural Rules – E-booklet – with useful information on how to run such a project.
  • Knowledge Assessment which at the beginning of the project checked participants knowledge about rural areas, entrepreneurship, youth unemployment, posibilities of funding etc.
  • During the project participants took part in interesting Pub Quiz and they filled quiz sheet.
  • What is rural entrepreneurship? – how to know session about rural entrepreneurship based on this presentation.
  • Example Youthpass which the participants got after the project.
  • How to sell?  – one of the tasks given to participants.
  • All the information about video challenge might be found HERE.
  • Materials to workshop about buyer personas are available HERE.
  • Form for the evaluators in the Business Idea Contest.

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Media About US

It is hard to follow all the project’s coverage on the Internet; however, here are some examples:

The list is constantly being updated.

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