RurALL Town Hall Meeting – Rural Voices, Shared Futures

On 16 June 2026, the RurALL project brought together participants from across Europe for its final online Town Hall Meeting, creating a space for dialogue, reflection, and exchange on the future of rural communities.

The event marked an important milestone in the RurALL journey, bringing together citizens, researchers, community practitioners, local decision-makers, and civil society representatives who have contributed to the project over the past two years. The Town Hall was designed as a participatory forum to reflect on project experiences, identify transferable lessons, and explore how local action can contribute to stronger and more resilient rural communities.

The programme opened with stories and reflections from project partners, highlighting experiences from eco-placemaking initiatives, intergenerational collaboration, community empowerment, and the transformation of ideas into concrete local actions. These contributions demonstrated the diversity of approaches developed across the RurALL partner countries while revealing many shared challenges and opportunities.

Participants then joined three interactive breakout sessions focusing on key themes that emerged throughout the project:

• Rural Identity & Recognition – exploring how rural communities are perceived and represented, and how local knowledge, traditions, and values can gain greater visibility and recognition.
• Participation to Action – examining the conditions that help participatory processes lead to meaningful and lasting community change.
• Community Gardens as Spaces for Civic Engagement – discussing how shared green spaces can strengthen social ties, encourage active citizenship, and support community resilience.

The discussions were enriched by invited guests, practitioners, and experts, including Dr. Lilla Bartuszek, President of the National Association of Livable Settlements in Hungary, Péter Biró, Mayor of Penészlek, Martin Vaško, founder of Precious Plastic Slovakia, Professor Pasquale De Muro of Roma Tre University, whose work focuses on sustainable human development, inequality, social innovation, and collective agency; and Joana Guerra Tadeu, climate justice journalist, activist, podcaster, and communication specialist from Portugal.

Drawing on their diverse professional backgrounds and experiences, the invited guests contributed valuable perspectives on rural development, sustainability, participation, collective action, local leadership, and community empowerment. Their reflections helped connect local experiences emerging from the RurALL project with broader social, environmental, and policy discussions.

The breakout sessions generated a wide range of insights and recommendations. Despite the diversity of local contexts represented, participants repeatedly highlighted the importance of trust, community ownership, local knowledge, and long-term engagement as essential ingredients for successful rural development initiatives.

The event concluded with a plenary synthesis and policy dialogue moderated by János Kendernay, Chief Advisor in the Cabinet of the Mayor of Budapest. Drawing on insights from the breakout sessions, participants explored how local experiences and community-led initiatives can inform policymaking and contribute to more resilient and inclusive rural futures.

One of the strongest messages emerging from the Town Hall was that rural areas should not be defined solely by the challenges they face. Across Europe, rural communities continue to demonstrate remarkable creativity, resilience, and capacity for innovation when given the opportunity to shape their own futures.

As the RurALL project approaches its conclusion, the Town Hall Meeting served as both a celebration of achievements and a starting point for future cooperation. The event reaffirmed that meaningful participation, community-led action, and the recognition of local knowledge remain key foundations for building more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient rural communities across Europe.

The discussions and recommendations emerging from the Town Hall will contribute to the final reflections and legacy of the RurALL project.

We would like to thank all speakers, facilitators, partners, and participants whose contributions made this inspiring exchange possible.