The “Education in rural entrepreneurship through producing and valorising of medicinal and aromatic plants” project involves the most appropriate and diverse range of 5 partners in order to benefit from their different experiences, profiles and specific expertise and to produce relevant and high quality project outcomes. The project links 1 international scientific expertise-GA Germany with 1 high-level education LLU Latvia, practice from 2 rural SMEs with similar activities and objects: Eco Herbal Romania and Dary Natury Poland and 1 NGO: ACE-ES RO which promotes social entrepreneurship. The purposed project addresses social problems from rural areas with few opportunities and NEET adults. Many rural areas in EU have seen their local populations decline due to low education level, social exclusion, unemployment, poverty, lack of occupational, social and economic alternatives and migration of workforce. Although agriculture is the economic engine of socio-economic development in rural areas, skilled workers in agriculture represents only 20% of the total employed population.This project aims to create opportunities for rural people, including disadvantaged groups, to develop innovative teaching instruments in order to raise the education rate in rural areas, to develop new entrepreneurial skills and competences and contribute to the establishment of small/subsidence/or family farms in communities with fewer opportunities. In order to succeed in their initiative, the target group must be directed to operate in an increasing domain. The processing industry of medicinal and aromatic plants is a growing market, where the demand is not covered yet. During September-December 2015, the consortium have identified at least 320 people which aim to set up a farm for producing herbs, but do not have the necessary knowledge. Through this project we aim to provide innovative and intelligible training materials in rural entrepreneurship through producing and processing of medicinal and aromatic plants (varieties from spontaneous flora that are endangered because of irresponsible harvesting that make inhomogeneous material). The specific objectives consist in:O1: Developing rural entrepreneurship and increase employment opportunities and self-employment in rural areas through education in producing and valorising of medicinal and aromatic plants.O2: Developing innovative training materials designed to facilitate the inclusion of disadvantaged groups, which includes demonstrations, photos, video recordings/movies, data sheets, best practices and new technologies that allows to provide education in an accessible and understandable manner at EU level in different social context.O3: Disseminating the intellectual outputs achieved through the project to 1300 specialists, professionals, stakeholders.This project produces an innovative pedagogical approach and methodology for delivering transversal competences, tangible and complete intellectual outputs: - a manual for rural entrepreneurship through producing and valorizing medicinal and aromatic plants that are endangered or available only from spontaneous flora;- and a curricula for applying this manual by adults educators to the target group.The intellectual outputs will be present to the target group in an innovative format, with real case studies and will provide a concrete action plan, so that the target group will obtain certain information as text, photos and video. This project will produce a supplement with images and video content for the manual addressed to rural people without basic skills (school droppers, illiterates, Roma).The learning outcomes provided by the present project will be exploited and materialized in financial results for target group with direct impact in the community, in order to maximize the potential of the funded project activities, so that the results will be used beyond the lifetime of the project. This project’s outcomes will be disseminated to 100 stakeholders, policy and decision-makers and partners through direct, offline and online channels and to 1200 participants at 2 multiplier events, organized as international conferences. The dissemination activities of this project facilitate the education in rural communities and sustainable development, not only at European level, but it’s also assured the transferability of the project outputs to generate impact at international level.The intellectual outputs will be implemented in training sessions for 200 adults, NEETs from rural areas which will benefit from the training program developed by the proposed project will be supported by the trainers to set up micro/subsistence/ or family farms for organic production of medicinal plants (species described in the manual), using their land, or land provided by public institutions in social purposes. The training will include proper methods to valorize the crop and generate income for their families or become self-employee.
The Strategic Partnership for implementing the project “Education in rural entrepreneurship through producing and valorising medicinal and aromatic plants” has brought together the private sector represented by the social enterprise Eco Herbal Romania, as coordinator, NGOs by the Association of Consultants and Experts on Social Economy Romania (ACE-ES RO), researchers from The Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research Germany (GA) and public education institution as Latvijas Lauksaimniecības Universitāte/ Latvia University of Agriculture (LLU). This consortium was the greatest mix of knowledge, background and experience in the project area, also in implementing international Strategic Partnerships through Erasmus+ Programme. In almost two years of its working time, the project managed to complete all the tasks and Intellectual Outputs the partner consortium agreed on in the early stage of application and submission. This Erasmus+ project was set up to provide innovative training materials in rural entrepreneurship through producing and processing of medicinal and aromatic plants. This project has provided innovative training materials as 2 Intellectual Outputs: one manual and one curriculum for rural entrepreneurship through producing and valorising of herbs that are endangered or available only from spontaneous flora. Both Intellectual Outputs registered great success and they have been highly appreciated among academic area. This Intellectual Outputs are used in present and will be used for long term in future as great materials for adult education in 4 public educational institutions from Romania, Latvia, Poland and Sweden. The Manual have been awarded with the third place in the category “Best teaching material” in the LLU’s annual contest regarding best books and teaching materials developed by LLU academic staff. Our Intellectual Outputs have been disseminated through 3 multiplier events, organized in all 3 countries of which consortium partners belong: Romania, Latvia and Germany. These multiplier events have summed up 268 participants, from which 169 were local and 99 foreign participants. The activities were accompanied by five transnational project meetings where the expertise and ideas were exchanged, the observation of work plan and time schedule monitored as well as the next tasks and responsibilities agreed. The Intellectual Outputs have been disseminated to 634 beneficiaries through direct interaction through theoretical and practical training, multiplier and other events and to 2273 contacts, scientists, practitioners, adult educators and other people interested in the subject through indirect interaction. Furthermore, the partnership has achieved a real success with its transversal tasks of Evaluation and the Dissemination of results. Various useful management tools were applied in order to constantly monitor the project progress as well as to evaluate its success, like Project Management Procedure, Quality Management Plan and Risk Management Procedure. Also, all partners have been implemented various dissemination activities in their countries in order to spread and publicize our project’s results. This project and the partner cooperation, the transnational meetings and multiplier events have generated excellent learning opportunities, exchange of good practice and professional experience, including exchanges and trade partnerships between different private entities from different European countries. The Final Report at hand documents all the project´s activities and results as well as evaluates its success. This project has fulfilled the Erasmus+ Programme objectives and is still contributing to the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy for growth, jobs, social equity and inclusion. The project is related to Erasmus+ both horizontal and specific priorities, aims to reach large scale of people, to improve competitiveness and to bring added value at EU/international level.