Our main project goal is boosting rural citizen participation in climate and environment-related public discussions, actions, and policymaking. Our strategy to achieve this objective is reaching and involving rural citizens who are currently inactive in or disappointed by existing local or EU-level policymaking with different kinds of innovative and impactful participatory methods. We would like to guide rural citizens through different stages of participation from awareness raising and information through direct and concrete community action to engagement with policymakers and participation in policymaking. This requires both information-sharing and practice-oriented actions so that citizens acquire a diverse range of knowledge and skills to become active citizens. All our project activities are connected to concrete local environment and climate crisis-related community problems and issues so we can try and develop locally designed responses and solutions corresponding to each territory’s specific needs and possibilities. This also deepens citizens’ engagement as climate action is connected to real, tangible issues and not just abstract concepts.
Each project activity will introduce and test a new type of participatory method in the designated rural areas. We would also like to gather important data regarding the current levels of climate policy awareness of rural people and local environmental issues and concerns, as well as evidence regarding the efficiency of various participatory mechanisms in different rural target groups and environments. This way we can build up a repository of best practices for boosting rural participation methods for climate related discussions and actions.
The chosen activities with the underlying participatory methods and approaches are:
The first activities of the project will be centered around research and analysis that project partners will conduct on the national levels among the project target groups in the identified rural areas. The detailed research methodology will be developed together by partners at the beginning of the project. The main goal is to assess the objective knowledge and survey the subjective feelings of the target groups about topics relevant to the project (EU policymaking and its local implementation, EU climate goals and measures, European Green Deal, local environmental problems, current level of information of and engagement with local or EU policymaking, etc.).
We will organize trainings for target groups in all project countries. The trainings will be held by partners in-situ in the pre-identified rural areas for 40-50 participants per event, but they will also be live-streamed to widen our reach, ensure inclusion, and provide an opportunity to learn for anyone unable to attend personally. The main goal of the training is to educate participants about relevant national and EU policies (e.g. Rural action plan, European Green Deal), key facts about the climate crisis, impact on rural areas, ongoing adaptation and mitigating measures, individual and community climate actions, how policymaking is affecting their lives, and basic participatory and active citizenship methods and tools that can help them influence the policymaking process on national and EU levels (including ECI, consultations, complaints, recommendations). The reason we’re starting the series of engagement events with such an activity is that informing citizens of their rights, responsibilities, and options, and disseminating knowledge is the critical first step to legitimate participation – without knowledge and information, citizens are much less able to step into the policymaking process to meaningfully influence it.
The international hackathon will be an online event for 150-200 people from 10-12 countries. The goal of the event is to create innovative solutions for climate-related local problems with the participation of teams formed by applicants. Target audience will be youth between 18-30 living in rural areas in the European Union (the event will be open, but project partners will also directly recruit participants with diverse interdisciplinary talents). The online hackathon begins with an Opening Ceremony to introduce challenges and guidelines, followed by a Development Phase where participants collaborate on solutions and mentor interactions. The event concludes with a Closing Ceremony featuring final presentations, judges' evaluations, and awards, all focused on fostering innovation for climate-related local problems. The winning team will be awarded a mentoring opportunity by their chosen project partner, which will host them, and provide further training and support to the realization of their climate-related community action.
We will organize eco (ecological) placemaking activities in Hungary, France, Portugal, and Slovakia (where partners have experience in eco placemaking). Target audiences are local rural citizens, youth and seniors alike, who will be mobilized to participate in local co-design activities (participant numbers are conservatively estimated between 25-50 per project country but we are able to host, and in fact, expect more local people to participate in the events).
We organize an international participatory project activity will be a visual storytelling event, which will include an online workshop about the power of visual storytelling in climate activism, awareness raising, and engagement as well as the development of short videos by rural citizens sharing their own ideas and visions of a green, inclusive, and prosperous rural future. The workshop will be held online by ANP|WWF, who have extensive experience in using visual storytelling in public campaigns, international communications, and climate advocacy, and will include practical advice and tools on how people can create immersive stories for environmental and social change. We will then encourage participants from rural areas all over Europe to create their own stories of a sustainable rural future or share what they are doing to transform their communities (using and sharing a dedicated hashtag).
Our project closing event will be a virtual town hall meeting, an online event with 150-200 participants from all 5 project countries, where rural residents can communicate their views, concerns, and recommendations to policy- and decision-makers on local environmental and climate-related matters that are important to them. The agenda will include discussions about rural and environmental-related policy issues and recommendations, with special emphasis on local rural development action plans, the EU’s Rural Action Plan, and the European Green Deal. Participants will also be able to ask questions of officials, while policymakers will have a direct opportunity to learn about citizen concerns, issues, and feedback.