“Planting Ideas, Cultivating the Future“

July 19th – July 26th 2025

Novo Mesto, Slovenia

Rural Youth Europe and Zveza Slovenske podeželske mladine (Slovenian Rural Youth Association) openly invite you to Slovenia!

The European Rally in 2025 will focus on empowering young people for active participation and involvement in policy-making in rural areas. The skills and new knowledge will help them express their opinions and affect change in their local communities to create a better environment for everyone.

Objectives of the project: 

1. Empowering young people for active participation and involvement in policy-making in rural areas.

2. Encouraging individuals to actively cooperate with and increase their participation in youth organizations.

3. Recognizing and acknowledging the role and impact of youth work and non-formal education for the benefit of society.

4. Promoting and developing quality (rural) youth work.

5. Developing and strengthening soft skills such as communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and advocacy skills.

6. Encouraging and establishing dialogue with decision-makers. Developing and strengthening a sense of solidarity and belonging to the community.

Why attend?

There are many reasons as to why join us his summer, but the most important ones are:

• learning a lot about active participation, policy-making and how to make a difference in your local communities,

• meeting young people from all across Europe,

• creating new memories and forming friendships, that will last a lifetime,

• improving your public speaking abilities, getting out of your comfort zone,

• developing competencies that you can use in to improve your local communities and in your career,

• and most importantly, we will have a full week of learning and having fun!

The program will feature interactive workshops, offering participants the chance to explore various aspects of the theme. Using non-formal education methods and emphasizing youth participation, the sessions will create opportunities for skill development, knowledge sharing, and experiential learning.

Team Leaders

The Team leader must be aged over 18 years old (advised under 35) and is accountable for all communication between the prep team and their national team before, during and after the Rally.

Tasks of the Team Leader will include:

• Sharing email communication to their team members;

• Taking care of team members and making sure everyone follows the behavioural guidelines;

• Daily team leader meetings in order to create a safe space for all the participants;

• Collect all original tickets, proof of payments and boarding passes of the team and submits them to the organisers in a timely manner.

Participants Profile

Participants must:

• Be aged over 18 and under 30 years;

• Be active within their own youth organisation/ community;

• Be interested in topics like entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial mindset, taking action in their organisation and local communities;

• Be able to communicate in English;

• Collect all original tickets, proof of payments and boarding passes to forward them to the team leader;

• Have travel insurance; For EU citizens we advise to have the European health insurance card (https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=559).

Each organisation is responsible for booking tickets for their National Rally Team. Before purchasing the tickets, you need to contact the local Prep Team (janja.bohte@zspm.si) to check your travel plans and to be approved. All travel invoices and schedules must be sent to the office e-mail by 1st of June 2025.

Please consider environment friendly options when arranging your travel.

The venue of the Rally is: 

Kmetijska šola Grm in biotehniška gimnazija,

Sevno 13, 8000 Novo mesto

https://maps.app.goo.gl/FV3yycTAsHkb9FYBA

If you plan to travel by plane, we advise you to fly to airports closest to Novo Mesto, such as: Ljubljana and Zagreb. You can also look for travels to Venice, Trieste or Vienna.

Further travel information on how to arrive at the venue, will be shared later with the selected team leaders and participants.

Arrival: Arrival is 19th of July 2025.  Based on your travel plans and arriving hours, we will arrange certain pick up points or give you necessary information about public transport to arrive at the venue.  Please note that the General Assembly is taking place on the 19th of July 2025 and if you are the delegate to the GA, your arrival should be on the 18th of July.

Departure:  Departure is 26 of July 2025 For your departure, we will also provide the needed information about travelling to nearby airports and arrange transport from the venue to your flights on time.

Travel Reimbursement

We will try our best to reimburse travels of maximum €300 for team leaders and participants.

Please note that travel reimbursements can only be paid on the following conditions:

• Cheapest option of travel is used (second class train and bus, economy class flights etc.) and approved by the local Prep Team before booking

• The participants are following the Behavioural Guidelines and general Rally rules at all times

• All original tickets, proof of payments and boarding passes are submitted to the local prep team by 10th of August 2025

Please note that no travel reimbursement will be made unless ALL ORIGINAL travel documents are received by 10th August 2025. More about the process will be shared at a later date.

If you have any further questions please contact Rural Youth Europe at office@ruralyoutheurope.com. 

Rural Youth Europe and Zveza Slovenske podeželske mladine are looking forward to welcoming you to the European Rally 2025!