Many rural areas in Europe are facing the challenges of depopulation, partly because of youth migration towards the urban areas, which overshadow the potential of the rural areas, facing also stereotypes of rural areas as non-perspective, boring and not suitable for quality of life of nowadays. Young people are in lack of faith that their voice and their civic activities can influence the rural development and can be heard in European, national and often even local level. The main objective of the project is through the international gatherings to engage, connect and empower rural youth in rural development processes together with local, national and European level decision makers and thus moving rural youth toward the implementation of their own rural tomorrow's vision, and from the other side to raise awareness of other stakeholders on importance of youth involvement.More than 60 youth from the rural areas from 9 countries (Latvia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Kosovo, Spain, Slovakia), involved in local rural community building activities will take part in the main project activities - international gathering and the culmination - European Rural Youth Parliament (ERYP). The participants will have the opportunity to make their voice heard in European level by taking part in development process of ERP declaration and rising important questions for rural youth in ERYP declaration. Those two documents will be used to raise awareness about rural citizens needs within European institutions and thus intensify stronger relation between the citizens in rural areas and the European goals. The project activities include also preparatory meetings in order to ensure the best outcome and flow of the main activities as well as to ensure the quality of project results, gathering case studies of problematic rural development issues proposed by selected participants. To ensure the continuity the project activities will be concluded by an awareness raising event in Brussels projecting the main activities outcomes in the future. Methodologies used will include workshops, individual brainstorming tasks, plenary sessions, debates with experts, case studies, research activities as well as field trips and initiative markets. A free space for discussions among participants to exchange on their experience and possible development corporations will be ensured between the activities. As the result of the project the rural youth will be empowered with new skills, knowledges and experiences, engaged in civic activities and in policies affecting the lives off young people on all levels, connected with the regional, national and European level to make their voices and ideas be heard.The potential long term benefits of the project is linked with ERP and ERYP declarations which will be considered by rural policy makers in European level in this way ensuring long term influence in rural development issues. Moreover the youth participants empowered by the project activities will be able to ensure the leader role in their local rural areas by raising the civic awareness among other young people and by encouraging them to take part in local initiatives.

The project ‘Climate smart, ecosystem-enhancing and knowledge-based rural expertise and training centres’ (RURALITIES) delivers an ecosystem-enhancing and climate action driven expertise and learning framework organised in hubs e.g., the ‘RURALITIES’, comprising a series of innovative methodologies with the learner at its core, supported by a comprehensive network of living labs, and a digital platform combining the Internet and wireless technologies, to assist engage, connect and empower actors. This is done via a multi-point approach e.g., multi-actors, multi-disciplines, multi-systems, multi-scale, multi-sectors, and multi-levels. RURALITIES is rooted in the recruitment, preparation, training and coaching of 1.000+ facilitators (KPI) distributed in all participating countries, for a variety of tasks (e.g., trainers, facilitators, role models, hub coordinators, etc.), and who play a significant role in creating the matrix and the platform upon which the learning framework is built, develops and evolves. RURALITIES proposes to ideate, implement, futureproof, validate and deliver the aforementioned expertise and learning centres via real-scale practicing in 6 simplified rural socio-ecological systems (SIMSES) e.g., demonstrators, 2 in Italy, 1 in the United- Kingdom (UK), 1 in Slovenia, 1 in Spain and 1 in Romania. RURALITIES coordinates identified actions of local, regional authorities in supports of rural innovation in regions and economic sectors where rural innovators are not yet engaged in a relevant network. RURALITIES coordinates identified SIMSES networks promoting rural innovation solutions whilst establishing innovative multipoints ‘RURALITIES Hubs’ of expertise and training on rural innovation. This is done via coordinating action for the managing authorities and regional bodies influencing regional and national policy instruments in Italy, the UK, Slovenia, Spain and in Romania.