It is a while I know of this initiative and am looking forward to have you participating on this... We have prepared a small abstract on their mission:
The rural environment has been facing for decades one of the most serious problems that a territory may suffer: the loss of population. This fact curtails severely the possibilities of development of villages because in addition to reducing the number of neighbors those who are going away are, mainly, women and trained people.
Groups of the civil society, mayors, and social-economic agents and, in general, the rural residents have been mobilizing to prevent the threat of closure of the school, the loss of services such as health care, the postman or the closure of small shops.
However, the attempts to fix population and to attract new residents to municipalities have been carried out, sometimes, without the proper tools to ensure the success of the initiatives. Therefore, in order to find practical solutions and to corroborate them with other territories, in 2001 it is created the project ANER on Transnational Cooperation by Rural Development Groups from different Spanish Autonomous Communities and the French region of Limousin. Its work materialized later in the project EMBRACE THE EARTH.
These Groups of Social Action had seen during more than 10 years of work in rural areas, how new inhabitants settled in their villages, many of them entrepreneurs. At the same time, they had been spectators and protagonists of important social changes, both in rural environment and in the general system of values. To the new opportunities of business that arise in the villages, resulting from the improvement of the infrastructures and new communication systems, are joined new social trends that prefer the quality of life and prioritize rural values
In the presence of this reality and from the analysis of the previous failures and successes when fixing and attracting population to the territories, extracting the best from each experience, the eighteen rural development groups designed an action model to facilitate the arrival and integration of new residents entrepreneurs to rural areas. EMBRACE THE EARTH addresses with uniqueness of criteria in the fifteen groups the welcome of new inhabitants, systematizing and adapting to each reality a process that promotes population settlement in rural areas:
1. -Creating a Network of Welcome Offices for New Settlers-Entrepreneurs, which main function is to inform, advise and support the new resident entrepreneur trying to combine his personal and business needs with the resources of the environment.
2. -Carrying out mediation functions, preparing the welcome of the New Settlers-Entrepreneurs, promoting the awareness of the local population and the interagency coordination.
3. - Encouraging the transferability of good practices in the processes of Settlement of Population in rural areas
We are developing collaboration work with Abraza la Tierra, so, anyone interested on knowing more, please contat us
Full PDF info here: http://www.abrazalatierra.com/extras/comunicacion/Embrace_the_Land_2004_2008.pdf.
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Beach "Los Lances", Tarifa, Cadiz, Southwest of Spain.