In their diversity rural areas shape the "face of Europe" , they are a valuable space to live and stand for identity, home, culture and specific systems of values and a important economic factor. However, there is a lack of civic society's participation and of life and job opportunities. Because of these discriminations especially young people are leaving their homes. As results an alarming shift of the social structure and weakening of rural areas in all sectors can be observed. Rural areas are dying in Europe and (nearly) nobody cares. The project would like to make use of the opportunities of the "Year of the European heritage 2018" and contribute with educational programs, developing social, democratic and intercultural competences towards more cohesion of Europe. It's about to get to know the specific history and identity of everyone and to find steps towards a European identity, towards "Unity in diversity". Especially rural areas do play in this context a specific role as carriers of the countries' and regions' own identity. The related issues shall be tackled through exchange and networking of 10 non-governmental organisations in nine countries on European level - also to promote the European family of Nations to come closer together. The project will address the rural population as a whole as (indirect) target group, with special focus on the members of the partner organisations as multipliers, on young (future) and elderly people (needing special care), as well as relevant stakeholders and decision makers. Principially the project will be adressed to all people who are willing to take over responsibility for the well being of rural areas, and who like to contribute to active citizenship as European citizens. On European level up to now there is no such network existing which is composed solely out of civic society organisations from Eastern and Western European countries which is able to treat and address burning issues of European rural areas, only several platforms of certain professional fields or of governental institutions. Therefore it can be stated that the project is quite innovative. The initiative intends to tackle two levels: 1. Activities of all the participating project partners in their specific region takeling selected relevant issues in connection with the project's objectives and methods accompanied by efforts of distribution and networking 2. Activities on project-/ consortium level: Sharing experiences and findings during transnational meetings. As parts of the project’s documentation written reports and fotos are made available for all partners. The planned regular transnational project meetings will be used as an important working level within the project and as center of exchange and content training. They are the foundation of networking. Here happens the strategy development, organizational development, the identification of common tasks, goals, stakeholders and other networking partners. They also give the opportunity to learn about the reality of life in the partner countries and the formation of community and cohesion. In addition, they also give impulses for further activities and communication among the partners. In order to convey social, democratic and intercultural competence and contribute to increased capacity for dialogue as well as to critical reflection amongst the reponsable persons of the particpating organisations it is planned to accomplish a 5 days llearning/teaching activity in Romania covering the issue "The common cultural heritage of Europe". The work of the participating organisations mainly in adult education on selected themes provides the basis for the project. This allows a broader transmission of the issues adressed by the project including invitations to responsable persons in politics, administration, church, economy, public institutions and potential new partners for networking as a long term perspective.
The project was, in a sense, a follow-up initiative to the previous network-building project within the framework of PRORURE 1. It was successfully implemented in its main features and objectives, but also experienced certain limitations as the Corona pandemic progressed and therefore had to be extended by 9 months until 31 August 2021. Of the six transnational meetings planned until the outbreak of the pandemic, only three such events could be held with the presence of all ten partners from Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. The meeting with the Italian partners planned for 13-15 March 2020, in the initially particularly affected region of Bergamo, of all places, had to be cancelled at short notice. This then took place on the same date as a first Zoom conference, a form of communication among all project partners that was continued and further developed until the end of the project. It turned out to be a stroke of luck that the second transnational meeting on 04-06.10.2019 was already about training in forms of digital communication. The planning of an early implementation of a teaching and learning event in the first project year (and not at the end of the project, as in the previous project PRORURE 1) on the topic of cultural diversity in Europe (05.-09.2019 in Cluj/ Romania) was also a good decision. The fact that this meeting could then be held with the Romanian partners as planned was important for the dynamic course of the project. The first meeting of the project, which started on 01.12.2018, took place on 01-03.02.2019 as a kick-off event. In addition to content-related inputs (among others from a Member of the European Parliament, representatives of various Europe-committed initiatives and some participants) and project implementation-relevant agreements among the participating partners, the second part of the meeting was about the consolidation of feedback on a template prepared by an installed "technical team" on the question of the objective and further procedure on the topic of organisational development of the network. The general opinion of all partners was confirmed - and the project justified - that it was necessary to strive for a form of institutionalisation by the end of the project in order to be able to be present in public and with decision-makers with the issues developed so far for a prosperous development of rural areas in Europe. Accordingly, a processual concretisation of this idea was the focus of the further course of the project (such as the development of a statute), which was professionally accompanied by Open Europe Consulting (OEC), beginning with a third transnational meeting with the Spanish partners on 22-24 November 2019 in Avila, the last presentation event of the project, and concluding after the following eight Zoom conferences with the official foundation of the non-profit association PRO RURAL EUROPE e.V. according to German association law. In the meantime, this association has been registered at the local court in Siegburg and has the appropriate bodies (general meeting with an elected European board of directors). This means that the continuation of the project's work is in prospect and that it will be possible to integrate further European countries into the network. At the same time, during the project implementation period, the participating organisations carried out a large number of on-site activities in the sense of the project's objectives and reported on them at the meetings, which also led to the desired multiplication effects in the sense of the dissemination of "best practices". For example, the presence of the Belgian partner organisation at the launch of the campaign "Ich bin Europa- y tu tambien" (I am Europe - y tu tambien) at the Federal Assembly of the KLB Germany resulted in a similar campaign being carried out by the ACRF in Belgium. With the promotion of the development of civil society involvement in the rural regions, a rural movement emerged in Slovakia. With events, public relations work and publications on the current situation and development trends in neglected rural areas in Europe, the project partners have raised awareness in their countries of an urgent need for action. This also includes the question of the socio-ecological design of the European "Green Deal", which was discussed with representatives of European institutions and initiatives, such as COMECE. For this purpose, the contacts to decision-makers and opinion leaders at European level developed in the previous project were further expanded