For the past two blogs we have discussed youth participation and an introduction to all three projects that Rural Youth is working on top of all of our regular activities. This time in the spirit of youth participation and projects I want to talk to you about what will hopefully be one of the most important activities in the Together Thursdays, Rural Realities!
Together Thursdays is funded by what’s called the EP COMM fund, which is bureaucratic sounding way to say we get money from the European Parliament to carry out a communications project. They want us to let our grassroots members know how much EU institutions do for rural areas, which institutions do what and what benefits these institutions bring to you and over the course of the Together Thursdays project I am going to do just that. We will talk about EU institutions, their benefits and the positive change they help bring about for youth and for rural areas and how you can involve yourself and benefit personally from these institutions. We will look at ways to engage with EU and local democracy and help you get the most out of what the EU offers.
However, all good conversations go both ways, and it is just as important for us to find out from you what you feel is done for you, which areas could be improved, what your fears and worries for the future are and areas where current EU policy just doesn’t do enough. We want to find out from the rural youth (that’s you!) exactly what your greatest worries are for the future, what you want your voices heard on the most and areas where you fear they are heard the least. We want to find out what kinds of youth participation are available to you and how much you feel you can affect positive change in those areas. We want to know what kinds of issues you want to be dealt with at a local, national and international level and whether your right to youth participation is upheld. We want to find out all of this from you and then we want to use our platform and our project with the European Parliament to make sure they know it too.
This is the whole point of Together Thursdays and the first real step towards that point is Rural Realities. Rural Realities is an online form that we will use to gather information. It will be mostly multiple choice, quick and easy to fill out in about 10 minutes and it will provide us with the information we need to start having the right conversations. We will then use this information to produce blog posts, workshops, infographics and policy work. Once we have enough responses, we can start to compare what the greatest barriers to the future are and create webinars on how you can participate to reduce those barriers.
Rural Realities will launch next Thursday along with our new and improved monthly newsletter, Rural Youth Monthly. You can sign up to the newsletter to find out about what we are doing in Rural Youth Europe, what our member organisations are doing and how you can get involved! Juts follow this link: http://eepurl.com/bdAysH
The first get involved activity will be Rural Realities so please fill it out, tell your friends and help us build a stronger community together. You can find the form here: https://forms.gle/ZekFcj3kmsZzDeqM7
This week’s blog was put together by John Gillon, Rural Youth Europe’s Project Manager. If you would like to discuss any aspect of the blog with John, please e-mail projects@ruralyoutheurope.com
This blog is part of the Together Thursdays project, co funded by the European Union.
