Terra Viva🌿

Today we will talk about the training course that took place back in May and was called Terra Viva: Inspiring Entrepreneurship Among Rural Youth. This time the project took place from May 5 to 12 and brought together 16 youth workers and entrepreneurs from 6 countries: Estonia, Spain, Latvia, Czech Republic, Romania and Greece.

Why this time? Because this place and this organization occupy a special place in our work. The project was carried out within the framework of the accreditation of the Spanish organization Valdeorras Vive, with which we are doing projects and creating impact since 2022.

The project was created because of need to provide youth workers with better tools and inspiration for youth work to promote social entrepreneurship focused on rural areas. The main objectives of the project were to promote youth entrepreneurship from a social perspective and focused on rural areas, to generate innovative tools and good practices for youth work based in rural areas and to inspire and connect local and international youth to commit to a sustainable lifestyle.

The program was quite intense: on the first day we started team building with the creation of a working and friendly atmosphere for a more productive week, and almost immediately began to dive into the topic of the project, starting with local examples of young people who are trying to bring their ideas to life, and with what difficulties they face in rural areas. We didn't waste any time!

And what came as a surprise to all of us, local television contacted us, and on the same day they came to us to film an episode about us and the project! You can watch it here (in Spanish 😄).

We got to know various methods through which you can work with youth, we had a small hiking to get to know the region even better, and Victor from Romania told us about the European Youth Village and what a professional rural ecosystem is. It must be said that our Romanian partner is an excellent example of how much young people from remote regions can achieve, and how important it is to promote this at the national level. We were very happy to exchange insights and brainstorm about future initiatives together.

One of the activities was dedicated to educational board games, and we played "EU Box Challenge" that was created by us and worked as a successful method of attracting youth to specific topics.

Of course, in addition to “theory,” we also had practice, and the project participants created their own guide with their own methods, which they worked on for several days, including testing and adjusting. Soon the guide will be available on our partners’ page for everyone!

We had the warmest impressions of the training, and we really took away useful skills and knowledge that we could use in our future work in our organization. Thanks for this! And for a wonderful group, without which we would not have been able to achieve such results ❤️

Text: Aleksandra #erasmusplus #terraviva