Country Roads: Training in Arma di Taggia

Imagine a village that is close to the Ligurian Sea’s coast, 20 minutes from the famous Sanremo, and a few kilometres from Monte Carlo. Do you think it would be absolutely stunning and rich? This is what people usually expect when talking about such areas next to popular places. One of those locations is Arma di Taggia, the place where the training course called “Country roads” took place.

The locations like Arma di Taggia or the villages nearby are bright examples of places that have the same issues and difficulties the rural areas nowadays face all over Europe, and why not, the whole world.

Rural and remote areas in Europe and all around the globe have such problems and everyday issues that bigger cities got over with even centuries ago. That is why individuals from these areas, especially young people, cannot access educational opportunities, and jobs, be fully included in society, receive decent medical service, etc.

These issues usually lead to youth leaving their hometowns… Not because they don’t like their homes, families, or the village they live in. It’s just because they see and feel that in bigger settlements they can find jobs or better ones, can have a variety of opportunities in every kind of area. This is a situation that every country nowadays has, but it’s also a situation that can be changed for the better.

In this training called “Country roads” participants from Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Romania, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Portugal and Spain got together to learn and explore the causes and subsequences of problems in rural areas. Not only did they learn about the issues, but also tried to find some interesting solutions to solve them.

To do so, together with the “Young Effect” team and facilitators, participants of the training course had their 5-day training full of theoretical studies about rural areas to have a brief knowledge. This knowledge was very useful for finding the solutions to the active problems in those areas.

Then, the participants had a number of visits to the beautiful villages nearby to see how people actually live there, to ask them about their needs and demands, their worries and everyday life, and the problems and solutions they come up with usually.

The most important part of our training was the visit to Sanremo, and especially getting acquainted with a local NGO called “Pigna mon amour”. It helps the local community and pays special attention to those young people who come from low-income families or areas that have a high criminal level. Not only did we have visits with the participants of the “Country Roads” training, but also we spent some time in the free evenings to get to know each other. We shared stories from our cultures and personal lives and experiences, played board games, and even organised a Latino dances master class!

At the end of the project, every participant received an official European certification – YouthPass.