JOIN Project Magnitude
JOIN project is based on the objectives and priorities established by the Municipal Corporation of Murcia City Council to encourage and promote the direct participation and involvement of the young people of the municipality in the design of municipal policies. At the same time, it takes into account the priorities of the European Agenda which establishes the need for an inclusive and sustainable Europe to face the transformations generated by the ecological transition, technological evolution and globalisation, without leaving anyone behind, to BUILD A CLIMATICALLY NEUTRAL, ECOLOGICAL, FAIR AND SOCIAL EUROPE.
Objectives
Dialogue, youth participation, reduction of territorial gaps and inequalities for an inclusive and just ecological transition.
Promote HORIZONTAL DIALOGUE by creating spaces for reflection for YOUNG WOMEN from URBAN AND RURAL ENVIRONMENTS with local political representatives, as well as experts, researchers and other civil society actors on priorities and actions for urban-rural youth.
Today’s youth have faced several crises: economic, climatic, political and, on top of this, the pandemic, and in rural areas, double or triple discrimination. Several studies have noted how young adults in Europe tend to move from rural to urban regions (Wiest, 2016). The rural environment has the most educated generation of young people in its history, but unfortunately they do not remain in the territory and face difficulties and risks that, due to their age, do not correspond to them.
Filoxenia in Yoneri Korinthia (Greece) and Gaia in the Alentejo Region (Portugal) are continuously facing a series of obstacles that influence the lives of rural residents, since the 2008 crisis and currently with the Covid-19 pandemic, there are problems that affect young people, such as the lack of infrastructure: not enough public transport to the city, not enough facilities for education, culture and sport, not easy access to the internet, not many public Wi-Fi points, not enough digital skills on the part of young farmers, not many possibilities to practice foreign languages, lack of opportunities for youth mobility, etc. The result is the marginalisation of young women, who subsequently leave the villages and move to the cities, hoping for a better life.
Although Murcia it is not considered a predominantly rural municipality, given the size of the municipality there are rural areas in the Campo de Murcia area (Baños y Mendigo, Corvera, Jerónimos y Avileses, Sucina, Valladolises and Lo Jurado) which have a high rate of young people compared to other areas of the municipality. However, many of them face situations of vulnerability due to the limitations of services in these areas, or due to their origin. These areas have a high number of migrant population (Baños y Mendigo has a rate of foreigners of 53.24% (2020) and Jerónimos y Avileses 51.03%) who often do not have the skills to get involved in youth participation actions or feel that their voice is not taken into account on equal terms, so they tend not to develop common values of active citizenship. Hence the relevance of involving this group of young migrant women to enable them to engage in participatory actions in diverse and inclusive spaces.
Due to all these limitations, rural youth are often under-represented, atomised and distanced from spaces for youth participation, a situation that has even been identified by the European Youth Strategy 2019-2027. The situation is aggravated when young women start a life in the urban environment and become more distanced from the dynamics of their territory.
This project will set up a transnational network of young women for a just and social ecological transition that aims to create an urban-rural ecosystem that enables, through relationships between young people, the union of different approaches, views and realities, between the urban and rural environment.
JOIN Project Purpose
JOIN aims to create a space for transnational cooperation between young women through channels that enable the development of joint processes of participation and advocacy, generating actions that specifically promote the empowerment, leadership and civic and political action of young rural women.
To build a favourable framework to devise, innovate and promote initiatives that build solutions to the socio-environmental challenges facing our society, aiming towards more inclusive, fair, egalitarian and sustainable scenarios.
JOIN, through awareness-raising, dialogue, participation and collaborative work among young women, creates a platform to connect rural and urban young women for joint reflection, access to information, networking of rural leaders, creation of new urban-rural links, joint creation and social innovation from the STS (science, technology and society) perspective in order to:
- Provide an opportunity to learn new experiences, to generate awareness and motivate the youth community to undertake necessary actions on environmental issues to contribute to build lasting actions for future generations.
- Identify youth leaders and generate cooperative links.
- Design interventions to avoid the triple gap: gender, territorial and digital, generating a space for convergence and empowerment of rural women for their effective participation and leadership in the spaces of citizen creation.
Coordination, as project leader
MURCIA CITY COUNCIL Youth Service.
Their work will consist in the coordination of the project, as project leader.
Partners
Filoxenia Diapolitismiki Perivallontiki Organosi, Kyoneri, Greece.
FILOXENIA Association, Intercultural-Environmental Organisation, was founded in 2014 from the merger of the non-governmental organisations Youth Support Organisation "Filoxenia" and Environmental Movement of Corinthia. It leads the European Ecocitizens Network and brings together organisations from all over Europe working mainly on environmental activities. The aim of the network is to pool experience in environmental education and actions.
GAIA - Grupo de Acção e Intervenção Ambiental ,Lisboa, Portugal.
GAIA has developed a variety of initiatives on the ecological model, through a critique of the social and economic model that exploits and damages the planet, society and future generations. At the same time it seeks to build positive alternatives for an ecologically sustainable and socially just world. Among its most prominent activities is the promotion of jobs for climate (https://gaia.org.pt/category/campanhas/empregos-pelo- climate/) which promotes a bottom-up approach, empowering people and inviting them to get involved in local actions and participate directly in decision-making processes.
Tou Play, Bari , Italy.
Tou Play is an NGO based in southern Italy, in the city of Bari. It was created after an action of "Contamination Lab EU" of both universities of Bari and was created with the aim of transmitting culture and history to young people and tourists in a new, more interactive and enjoyable way, away from traditional forms of education, using as tools group games, exploration and non-formal education, encouraging integration, interaction and the discovery of new cultures.
