Social capital is “capital” that increases the social, political and economic effectiveness of society. Its main elements are consisted of interpersonal trust, social networks, norms, institutions and participation. The components, types and use of social capital by individuals in rural areas are of great importance for rural development policies. Social capital plays an important role in the regional and rural development strategies of the European Union (EU). Similarly, in recent years in Turkey, social capital has also become a very important concept in rural development policies. Strengthening of social capital is essential for developing rural areas, increasing entrepreneurship and its sustainability, strengthening rural governance and local capacity and developing rural cooperation as Turkey has series problems in each of these areas. The number of (both economic and social) entrepreneurs is inadequate, especially in rural areas in Turkey. Social capital enables entrepreneurship and facilitate entrepreneurs overcome resource restrictions. In today's world, financial capital alone is not sufficient for entrepreneurial success. Social capital is an important resource in ensuring the effective use of social networks. There are a number of problems with agricultural organisation in Turkey due to the lack of good management of rural/agricultural organisations and human resources. The development of social capital in rural areas will contribute to the elimination of these problems related to rural organisation. This need is felt not only for traditional agriculture / rural production-related activities, but also in the governance of short supply chains and rural tourism marketing, which leads to significant changes in the dynamics of the rural areas (Giray, et al. 2019). The number of failed enterprises in this field is increasing. This is because people do not have the skills to work together within these newly created structures. For this reason, the strengthening of social capital in the rural communities is urgently needed. The project is designed to prepare a set of training modules on the subject of Social Capital in Rural Communities for Rural Development for trainers in Ministry of National Education (MoNE). The training set will include e-learning modules for trainers in Public Training Centers of MoNE, short video shows for rural residents (rural learners). Implementation Guide for the Country and Situaiton and Good Practice Examples of Social Capital across Europe. The target groups of the training modules will be adult trainers working in Public Training Centers and experts of MoAF. Rural residents especially local leaders in rural areas are also the the most important target group and beneficiaries of the project in terms of intellectual outputs. The main content of the training and intellectual outputs will be; 1. Definition of the concept of social capital 2. Components of social capital 3. Resources of Social capital 4. Types of social capital 5. Role of social capital in local and rural development 6. Needs for social capital 7. How to develop social capital 8. Measuring social capital Within the scope of the Project, the experience of Public Training Centers of MoNE in adult education and experiences of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MoAF) in agricutural extension for those living in rural areas will be brought together within the scope of SOCIALcapital. The main objective of this Project is to provide an extensive training program for the adult trainers from MoNE who will train the rural residents on the subject of “Social Capital in Rural Communities for Rural Development”. Within the Project, the trainers from MoAF will also be trained on the same subject in order to support the target groups/project beneficiaries when they use E-Learning Training Modules. These objectives will be reached by providing adult trainers from MoNE with e-learning training materials and a short training course at a partner that will strengthen their knowledge and competences on the subject of social capital. In addition 12 trainers and 4 experts from MoAF will attend short training courses in a partner country. The project consortium is consisted of six partners; three Universities, a Research Institute and two Ministries. All partners are listed below: • Agricultural Training Center Of Ministry Of Agriculture And Forestry, Turkey • General Directorate of Lifelong Learning of the Ministry Of National Education ,Turkey • Evora University, Portugal • Isparta University of Applied Sciences, Turkey • Technical University of Madrid, Spain • Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics, Rural and Mountain Research, Austria
One of the our goals in this Project is to produce a set of training material on the subject of social capital in rural communites. This training set include e learning modules for those all intersted but mainly for trainers in the Ministry of Education, Short videos mainly for rural people and for those all interested and E-book for all target groups. The other objective is to provide an extensive training program for the adult trainers working at the Public Training of Center of Ministirry of National Education who will train the rural residents on the subject of social capital in rural communities for rural development. Within the Project implementation period, all these training materials have been produced in a high quality and provided trainers from MoNE, experts from Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and all other target groups. Apart from these, trainers form MoNE, experts from MoAF and ESOGÜ have been trained on the subjects mentioned above at a short course (LTT activity) in Madrid. In the pilot study after this short course, the trainers opened pilot courses in the pilot areas to train rural people in order for them to gain awareness, knowledge, and skills on the issues of social capital such as trust, social networks, sharing of knowledge and norms. Afer the completion of the training material, this material is designed according to the programs of the Mİinistry of National Education (MoNE) and added to the system of E-yaygın in the MoNE The reason of the training of rural people on social capital is to increase the rural entrepreneurship and to enhance and develop social solidarity for gommon golas in rural areas and improve rural governance. These could be achieved in the long run after the Project completion.
Social capital is “capital” that increases the social, political and economic effectiveness of society. Its main elements are consisted of interpersonal trust, social networks, norms, institutions and participation. The components, types and use of social capital by individuals in rural areas are of great importance for rural development policies. Social capital plays an important role in the regional and rural development strategies of the European Union. Similarly, in recent years in Turkey, social capital has also become a very important concept in rural development policies. In our country, there are some important problems in rural areas which constitute obstacles in front of rural development such as the lack of sufficient rural organization, which has a very important place in rural development, the weak culture of working and doing business together, the problems experienced in rural solidarity and the insufficient level of rural entrepreneurship in rural araes. In our country the number of entrepreneurs (both social and economical) is quiet insufficient, especially in rural areas. Additionally there are a number of problems with agricultural and rural organisations in our country due to the lack of good management and human resources. Improving rural/agricultural organizations is one of the priority issues of development plans/programs. Althogh the National Rural Development Plan (RDP) and IPARD Program include some measures aimed at improving agricultural organisation, a different approach is still needed to address the problems of organisation that have been going on for many years and to realize rural organisation that cannot reach the desired level despite the measures implemented. The development of social capital in rural areas will contribute to the elimination of these problems related to rural organisation. Apart from this, there is also a need to improve rural governance in order to achieve regional and rural development. On the other hand, social capital plays an important role in the regional and rural development strategies of the Eurpean Union. In a similar way, it has been an important concept in rural development policies and plans in Turkey as well. Social capital is the ‘capital’ that increases the social, political and economic effectiveness of a society. Its main element are consisted of interpersonel trust, social networks, norms and participation. Social capital enables entrepreneurship and makes it easier for entrepreneurs to overcome resource constraints. It is also an important resource in ensuring effective us of social networks. Similarly, social capital helps improve the development of rural organisation and solidarity through developing trust between people and towards institutions. Again the problmes in activities related to the rural/agricultural production such as short supply chain, rural tourism marketing stem from a weak culture of working together and there is also a need to strenghten social capital in these areas. The project is designed to prepare a set of training modules on the subject of Social Capital in Rural Communities for Rural Development for trainers in Ministry of National Education (MoNE). The training set include E-Learning Modules for trainers in Public Training Centers of MoNE, Short Video Shows for rural target groups and Situation and Good Practice Examples of Social Kapital accross Europe. The target groups of the training modules and adult trainers will be local leaders in selected rural areas. Within the scope of the Project, the experience of Public Training Centers of MoNE in adult education and experiences of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MoAF) in agricutural extension for those living in rural areas will be brought together within the scope of the project. In addition, International Agricultural Training Center of MoAF and Public Training Centers under General Directorate of Lifelong Learning of MoNE will within the scope of SOCIALcapial Project and contribute to the culture of inter-institutional cooperation. The main objective of this Project is to provide an extensive training program for the adult trainers from MoNE who will train the rural residents on the subject of “Social Capital in Rural Communities for Rural Development”. As a consequence, development of social capital will contribute to improve the rural organisation and solidarity, increase entrepreneurship and its sustainability, improve rural governence and local capacity and rural development in the long run. The SOCIALCapital Project has been prepared with the aim of contributing to the solution of the above-mentioned problems. .