1st mobility small scale parternship "Just Grow": Iceland

From the 23rd to the 30th of October 5 youth workers and volunteers from Manfred on Tour travelled with other experts in youth from Romania (Youth Alma NGO) and Iceland (Reykholar Youth Club) to our first strategic partnership meeting in Reykholar, Iceland.

The starting point of the Erasmus + KA210 "Just Grow" served us to meet officially our NGOs, explore our working structures, share common goals and objectives and learn good practices from Reykholar Youth Club engaging youngsters into youth participation and healthy leisure activities. There we discover how despite living in a very depopulated area the percentage of younger generations is higher than in Spain offering a different set of opportunities. The interest of the public administration assisting in the formal and non formal education of youngsters, was found to be fundamental to explain why families were eager to maintain their lives despite the challenges of living distantly from main attractions and public services.

During the 2 years this project will be running, we will discuss how to engage youngsters from rural areas in order to offer them the same opportunities those in bigger cities may have. Encouraging rural development and the innovation of economical activities of rural areas will be a key part as well of our partnership. Learning from different national cultures will help us to tackle our reality better thanks to the collective intelligence being shared.

The next meeting will occur in April in Spain, in our Coliving Sojuela Joven where among others we will engage again to check how the educational tools we are developing may help us to get a solid pool of volunteers and young participants into our educational proposals making Erasmus + and non formal education more inclusive and accessible.

Looking forward to meet again and keep developing strategies to organize great educational projects in rural Spain!