1 00:00:00,050 --> 00:00:12,410 Darek: Welcome to under 30 the podcast series by the youth partnership that brings the research results, explores trends in young people's lives and themes relevant for youth policy and practice. 2 00:00:13,219 --> 00:00:27,819 The EU -Council of : youth partnership has recently published a study: Young people in rural areas, diverse, ignored, and unfulfilled co -authored by Adina Marina Șerban and Rūta Brazienė. 3 00:00:28,790 --> 00:00:36,080 One of the most striking findings is that rural policies ignore young people and youth policies ignore rural youth. 4 00:00:36,590 --> 00:00:48,100 Generally, there is little understanding and acceptance in policy that young people in the rural areas represent a diversity of groups, interests, needs, and aspirations. 5 00:00:48,940 --> 00:01:10,563 My name is Dariusz Grzemny, and together with Tanya Basarab from the EU - Council of Europe youth partnership, we are discussing the challenges rural youth face and the youth work and youth policy responses with Adina Marina Șerban - one of the authors of the publication, and also with Karen Ayvazyan from the Advisory Council on Youth, in the Council of Europe. 6 00:01:11,143 --> 00:01:12,073 Enjoy listening! 7 00:01:12,534 --> 00:01:14,394 Welcome everybody to this episode. 8 00:01:14,424 --> 00:01:19,704 We have three people today, Tanya, Adina and Karen, which were introduced before. 9 00:01:20,224 --> 00:01:21,964 The first question is to Tanya. 10 00:01:21,994 --> 00:01:28,064 Tanya, there is this research paper published by the partnership on young people in the rural areas. 11 00:01:28,084 --> 00:01:34,374 And the title is Young people in the rural areas: diverse, ignored, and unfulfilled. 12 00:01:34,474 --> 00:01:37,324 Why this paper published by the partnership now? 13 00:01:38,279 --> 00:01:47,619 Tanya: So we are in a very particular time slowly and trying to understand, relaunch many things. 14 00:01:47,619 --> 00:01:53,349 We are hearing a lot of policy initiatives, many of them targeting young people. 15 00:01:54,189 --> 00:02:04,899 And we also know that in the youth sector there, this focus on discussing on taking rural youth forward, which is one of the EU youth goals. 16 00:02:04,989 --> 00:02:28,044 And in the Council of Europe, there is quite a lot of discussions about the situation and the opportunities young people in rural areas get and how especially the offer of youth policy, so, participation, civic, engagement youth work, and any type of non-formal learning activities are offered to them. 17 00:02:28,194 --> 00:02:51,779 So to support these initiatives, we have asked Adina and another researcher from our pool Rūta Brazienė to look at the needs of young people, their aspirations, and how they are actually now reflected in policies already, in policies, in programs and initiatives. 18 00:02:52,229 --> 00:03:02,749 And we've done that by collecting a little bit of information from the European Knowledge Center for Your Policy correspondence from the researchers. 19 00:03:03,109 --> 00:03:05,569 And Adina and Rūta tried to put it together. 20 00:03:05,689 --> 00:03:14,799 So, I think that the title says already a lot and hopefully it will call for reading it and looking into the findings. 21 00:03:14,829 --> 00:03:19,027 Darek: Adina you are one of the author of this research paper. 22 00:03:19,387 --> 00:03:34,917 I know that there is a lot of conclusions and recommendations coming from this paper, but maybe let's start a little bit with highlighting what are the specific challenges that young people in the rural areas face in Europe? 23 00:03:35,577 --> 00:03:50,717 If you can say a few words about it and then we can see what the actually already existing responses to these challenges cause you highlight some of them in the paper both in the youth work area, but also in, in policy and policy development and implementation. 24 00:03:52,270 --> 00:03:53,040 Adina: Thank you Darek. 25 00:03:53,090 --> 00:04:11,180 Yeah, the challenges first and a lot of questions because it's a research paper, so we also have findings, but I think that there's a lot of questions that need still an answer from the magic triangle's, from policy, research, in also from practice. 26 00:04:11,940 --> 00:04:25,930 When we started somehow with the challenge, when we started documenting the paper, because looking at all the statistics and all the numbers that were there, we understood that it's impossible to say how many young people would live in the rural areas in Europe, because 27 00:04:25,930 --> 00:04:43,150 there's still the question of how many would still have their official residence in the rural communities, but in the end who's living in the nearest city or you know, we also speak of a massive migration phenomenon when it comes to a lot of rural communities in Europe. 28 00:04:43,150 --> 00:04:52,870 So that would be, let's say one of the main findings that instill a question to answer how many young people would live in the rural communities in Europe. 29 00:04:53,745 --> 00:05:08,955 And from this question, of course, we move to the needs and challenges, trying to understand what would be the barriers that young people living in the rural areas would face because yeah, we in different research projects as well as in different 30 00:05:10,535 --> 00:05:19,060 programmes, European programmes, we speak of young people with fewer opportunities, but not all young people living in the rural areas are young people with fewer opportunities. 31 00:05:20,050 --> 00:05:45,565 So we, we try to understand what the vulnerabilities would be, and for that we try to look at the barriers to employment, to health services, to education, especially now in this very strange times when school moved online, but in the end, we don't know how many students would have access to, to follow the online education process. 32 00:05:46,145 --> 00:05:58,230 So, somehow, as a conclusion of this approach and perspective would be that there are several barriers, but research didn't really look at them separated. 33 00:05:58,230 --> 00:06:08,820 So a lot of vulnerabilities put all together and what we know is that young people living in the rural communities would face barriers in accessing the basic services. 34 00:06:09,690 --> 00:06:13,890 Of course, everything getting much more complicated with the pandemic. 35 00:06:15,075 --> 00:06:25,885 So yeah, with this unresponded, we also moved to understanding what was there and what has been done for young people living in the rural communities. 36 00:06:25,915 --> 00:06:38,435 And it was also somehow sad to understand that even the policies and measures that were there were in place were mainly to support young farmers. 37 00:06:38,465 --> 00:06:54,090 So a lot of on agriculture, which of course it's good, it's essential for the rural communities, but we would also like to understand what's its diversity there because there's a lot of important subjects for young people that were not covered. 38 00:06:54,090 --> 00:07:05,400 So nothing about gender, nothing about identity, diversity, very few on social inclusion and on the needs and interests of young people living in the rural community. 39 00:07:05,410 --> 00:07:19,020 So, speaking of what's there, there is something on agriculture and supporting young farmers, but not on the other interests and aspirations of young people living in the rural communities. 40 00:07:19,830 --> 00:07:22,750 And that would also go for the European programmes. 41 00:07:22,770 --> 00:07:31,290 So, how to support young people to access the basic services or to set up their own initiative, which is not linked to agriculture. 42 00:07:32,845 --> 00:07:40,975 It's basically a lot of questions that would require an answer from policy, practice and yeah, a lot of research. 43 00:07:40,975 --> 00:07:46,135 It's only somehow the beginning of a process as we would see it. 44 00:07:46,962 --> 00:07:47,792 Darek: Thank you, Adina. 45 00:07:47,822 --> 00:07:58,112 You mentioned it a lot in the research, but you analyzed also a lot of programs and a lot of papers actually in Europe, both from European level, but also local regional and the national level. 46 00:07:58,532 --> 00:08:12,087 And yes, you highlighted these challenges, what you mentioned, especially in education and also what comes out after COVID-19 pandemic: the digital inclusion that goes together with social includes, participation and also employment. 47 00:08:12,087 --> 00:08:16,517 So these are the areas that you tackled in the research paper, highlighting these challenges. 48 00:08:16,517 --> 00:08:27,437 Karen, how do you see these challenges from your perspective as a practitioner, but also policy maker, because you are a member of the Advisory Council, how do you see these challenges? 49 00:08:28,487 --> 00:08:29,307 Karen: Thank you, Darek. 50 00:08:29,397 --> 00:08:43,297 First of all, I want to congratulate the partnership for a very comprehensive research on rural youth, which is one of the few documents actually reflecting on the issues, needs and asprirations of rural youth. 51 00:08:43,317 --> 00:08:49,117 And this comes to show that rural youth has not been a priority for a long time in Europe. 52 00:08:49,157 --> 00:09:05,517 Though, this is something which has needed to be tackled for a long time ago, due to the lack of opportunities, lack of infrastructure, lack of access to all the services that rural youth are having for a long time. 53 00:09:06,697 --> 00:09:08,847 In terms of what should be done. 54 00:09:08,937 --> 00:09:16,702 I believe that we need to start having standards for rural youth inclusion and participation on the policy level. 55 00:09:17,112 --> 00:09:18,382 This is how we should start. 56 00:09:18,382 --> 00:09:32,422 We shouldn't start doing things, which will just include some of them, but we need to come up with a standard which should come from an upper level, from the European level to the national level and go down to the local level. 57 00:09:33,562 --> 00:09:36,822 Mostly we are thinking about from the bottom up. 58 00:09:37,412 --> 00:09:42,302 But I think bottom up works only at the time when everything is there. 59 00:09:42,652 --> 00:09:44,162 So the standars are there. 60 00:09:44,842 --> 00:09:50,782 And if we do something in a local level, we can have impact, but it's not a long-term impact. 61 00:09:50,902 --> 00:09:55,912 And sometime we will stop it and we will not doing it in a quality way. 62 00:09:56,542 --> 00:10:14,372 So that's the reason that why the advisory council, and the portfolio on young people in rural communities is trying to set up the policy standard within the Council of Europe, which will reinforce the need of inclusion of young people in rural communities. 63 00:10:14,792 --> 00:10:31,667 As Adina said, they have very complex problems and unfortunately, by this time, all the documents, all the policy documents have approached rural youth as one social category, which is mainly like geographic one. 64 00:10:31,727 --> 00:10:43,257 So if you live in a rural community, will just mention in the policy document that we are also including rural youth, but within the rural youth, there are other sub categories. 65 00:10:43,257 --> 00:10:58,077 There are multiple identities, like, there are young people with disabilities who have completely different needs and issues because they live in an less accessible community. 66 00:10:58,437 --> 00:11:08,437 There are minorities which are in Europe, mostly, settled in, in the rural areas who have completely different, problems that need to be tackled. 67 00:11:08,837 --> 00:11:16,727 There are also young women who are also having some other problems just because they live in a rural or conservative areas. 68 00:11:17,287 --> 00:11:32,347 And I believe that we need to set standards in a policy is which approach rural youth intersectionally and all the things that we want to do need to be tailor made. 69 00:11:32,767 --> 00:11:45,907 I don't want to jump in and say that this needs to be done in terms of the activities of inclusion, because a lot of research and a lot of thoughts should be put under what we are doing. 70 00:11:46,897 --> 00:11:50,807 And there is another thing which also came to us. 71 00:11:51,057 --> 00:11:56,507 There is no much data, as Adina said also, there's not much data about rural youth. 72 00:11:57,342 --> 00:12:04,272 And mostly the data that is available is in EU level, not in the Council of Europe. 73 00:12:04,882 --> 00:12:10,102 So the information which is there is not also accessible to us. 74 00:12:10,562 --> 00:12:19,592 That's why we need to go to the national level to gather data and based on the data to propose some policy measures and standards. 75 00:12:20,112 --> 00:12:22,002 This is what I would suggest right now. 76 00:12:22,042 --> 00:12:26,722 I really don't want to jump in and say, we need to do this and to do this. 77 00:12:26,752 --> 00:12:32,002 I think the first thing that we need to do is to set up the policy standard of rural youth inclusion. 78 00:12:34,250 --> 00:12:36,770 Darek: We jumped immediately into policy, which is very interesting. 79 00:12:36,770 --> 00:12:43,390 And I think it's very, very important because this is what the paper says, that there is a lot of also conclusions and the recommendations when it comes to policy. 80 00:12:44,230 --> 00:13:00,520 I still would like to come back a little bit to practices on the local and national level, because the paper also describes a lot of very successful initiatives, actions that were taken either by non-governmental actors or sometimes by the governments. 81 00:13:00,530 --> 00:13:12,850 One of the example that just got stuck in my head was the example from Serbia when the pandemic started, where there were workshops proposed to young people how to use online tools. 82 00:13:12,850 --> 00:13:27,450 Then also the example from Czech Republic about the local action groups, which is I think a very interesting example, which responds to the needs of young people in the rural areas and the challenges that they face. 83 00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:39,430 If we can talk about this a little bit about this different examples and in different places in Europe, how they work and why they are successful, what they should focus on. 84 00:13:39,940 --> 00:13:44,890 It's examples of youth work, examples of what the governments can do, what the local governments are doing. 85 00:13:45,190 --> 00:13:55,980 I think that's interesting to see what are these examples that are actually addressing the challenges related to employment, to social inclusion, to participation of young people or digital inclusion. 86 00:13:57,980 --> 00:14:12,400 Adina: I think it's extremely relevant and definitely from what we saw when documenting the paper if you have few examples, then that would get people getting inspired on trying out their own initiative somehow. 87 00:14:13,130 --> 00:14:20,815 We managed to collect the information with the support of our EKCYP and fellow researchers and correspondents. 88 00:14:21,525 --> 00:14:36,455 And somehow we saw that it's a tendency of non-governmental organizations to try to come up with initiatives that would work in their own community. 89 00:14:36,465 --> 00:14:45,890 So, plenty of examples of detached and mobile youth work initiatives that were happening in different countries. 90 00:14:45,890 --> 00:15:06,835 So, somehow being inspired by, for example, we have the, from the UK where you have these practices for a lot of years, and then seeing them in Malta and Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, where we understand that it's needed trying to learn from other contexts and to bring them in countries where you might not have the infrastructure. 91 00:15:06,835 --> 00:15:23,075 So speaking here of youth centers of facilities that would allow you to work with young people living in the rural areas, but then you do come with other working approaches that, you know, would allow you still to work even without this infrastructure. 92 00:15:23,075 --> 00:15:28,230 So, many examples of this kind of youth work approaches. 93 00:15:28,810 --> 00:15:45,680 As you mentioned, there were countries that also shared the examples of mainly ministries of youth and sport trying to support somehow young people with fewer opportunities, including here young people living in the rural areas, but I would personally see it as the level two. 94 00:15:45,920 --> 00:15:57,710 So, coming with some action for young people who already had access to equipment and also to internet, but somehow level one is still unresolved. 95 00:15:58,520 --> 00:16:09,720 So how to speak of digital participation and to access to online learning for those young people would not have the equipment or the competencies to be part of the process. 96 00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:14,070 So level one, it's still somehow unresponded in different countries. 97 00:16:14,790 --> 00:16:29,320 What we also saw when documenting our paper was that in some countries, the international donors support the development of different projects and programs that were quite successful in working with young people in the rural communities. 98 00:16:29,350 --> 00:16:35,290 Georgia, for example, had some projects already, and there are others that are still under development. 99 00:16:35,290 --> 00:16:40,810 So there is some practices, but there's still a lot to be done. 100 00:16:41,777 --> 00:16:47,797 Karen: As Adina said, there are some practices, which may have very good results on a local level. 101 00:16:48,397 --> 00:17:02,737 And unfortunately, those practices that are in the domain of the NGOs, usually the NGOs are the ones who are initiating this kind of things in order to provide access to young people from rural communities. 102 00:17:03,337 --> 00:17:10,792 But then at the same time there is an issue of having really NGOs and structures in the rural communities. 103 00:17:11,312 --> 00:17:20,992 This is something which also hinders rural youth to have access to youth work services, youth services, which are not available in the municipal level. 104 00:17:21,652 --> 00:17:31,742 And unfortunately it's throughout Europe that youth work still remains in the agenda of the NGOs mostly, not in the agenda of the governments. 105 00:17:32,292 --> 00:17:55,182 That's why I think the policies that should be said in there should focus on giving the space, physical space at the local level, in the regional level for young people from rural communities to get engaged in the social and political activities and to have the structures within their communities. 106 00:17:55,782 --> 00:18:08,302 The consolidation process of rural communities, which have been going in Europe already for a while it's really challenging access to participation of rural youth as well. 107 00:18:08,332 --> 00:18:10,102 So the communities are getting larger. 108 00:18:10,892 --> 00:18:22,142 The administrative centers are being in place in a bigger community, which does not have access, to which not all young people have access. 109 00:18:22,582 --> 00:18:28,652 It really hinders the participation of young people in the decision-making processes as well at local level. 110 00:18:29,312 --> 00:18:41,282 One of the solution could be the digital participation, which can be put in place, but as Adina said that there's another issue, which is lack of infrastructure, digital infrastructure. 111 00:18:41,282 --> 00:18:45,152 So in some communities, internet is the problem still. 112 00:18:45,452 --> 00:18:50,462 We live in 21st century, but the internet is problem also in rural communities. 113 00:18:51,152 --> 00:18:55,202 Some people do not have equipment because of their social economic background. 114 00:18:55,232 --> 00:18:56,642 They cannot afford it. 115 00:18:57,372 --> 00:18:59,842 Those are the things that also needs to be tackled. 116 00:19:00,272 --> 00:19:06,122 This is one of the most relevant issues, especially during the COVID time. 117 00:19:06,362 --> 00:19:25,357 Because this showcase that real issue when in rural communities, like, as a family with social economic low back have like three kids and one equipment and the 3 kids have to participate in online classes, how, how they can manage to do that. 118 00:19:26,087 --> 00:19:36,237 The pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic really, really emphasized the need to focus more on people living in rural communities. 119 00:19:36,567 --> 00:19:45,072 I don't want to generalize and say that all the people in rural communities have like lower socioeconomic background. 120 00:19:45,582 --> 00:20:04,277 But I think, it's fact that, no matter your socioeconomic background, they have the same issues in terms of lack of accessibility to some of the services, some of the available things that you can easily access because you live in an urban area. 121 00:20:05,057 --> 00:20:27,522 Tanya: Maybe I can add that what I found interesting in the paper is not that it highlights some of the structural and repeated challenges that we might have read a few years ago, but there are some patterns that show that quite a few policies are going in parallel and initiatives. 122 00:20:27,522 --> 00:20:40,602 So agricultural initiatives, now they are going more towards, for example, there is also a change in thinking that particularly rural areas should invest more in environmental protection. 123 00:20:40,632 --> 00:20:49,512 And maybe that is also an opportunity for these programs, for these policies to have another vision of the young people that live in their communities. 124 00:20:49,572 --> 00:20:54,252 There, they are probably important actors in that reflection. 125 00:20:54,732 --> 00:20:57,042 And it's the same for youth policies. 126 00:20:57,102 --> 00:21:10,332 I would say that it's quite clear in countries that have a focus on strengthening municipal level management and regional level management. 127 00:21:10,332 --> 00:21:15,462 So some sort of administrative reforms, then you can see that there is also reflection. 128 00:21:15,492 --> 00:21:15,732 Okay. 129 00:21:15,732 --> 00:21:18,912 But what do we do with the young people who live in those areas? 130 00:21:18,912 --> 00:21:23,882 So they may think about investing in some programs that support young people there. 131 00:21:24,152 --> 00:21:48,037 So, there are these parallel initiatives, but it's clear that if young people still today in those communities, especially in the communities that are further from urban centers, if they still feel ignored, if they still feel that they are diverse, but no one sees that diversity except for themselves in their own close groups of friends. 132 00:21:48,872 --> 00:21:57,842 If they still feel that participation, if it's offered it's tokenistic it's okay we'll give you a space where you can talk, but there is no dialogue. 133 00:21:57,872 --> 00:21:59,492 There's no openness of dialogue. 134 00:21:59,522 --> 00:22:07,892 There is no clarity of who are the young people in this particular community who wants to do what and how can they be supported? 135 00:22:07,892 --> 00:22:15,932 As Karen was saying, this kind of tailored support, then we need to reflect also on the standards that exist already. 136 00:22:15,992 --> 00:22:21,632 So for example, there is the Charter on Participation of Young People in Local Life. 137 00:22:21,662 --> 00:22:24,362 This has been one of the most successful tools. 138 00:22:25,172 --> 00:22:28,622 It had a very active engagement at some point. 139 00:22:28,862 --> 00:22:39,807 There was a lot of work with really small communities to try to develop participatory structures, councils of young people, advisory structures. 140 00:22:40,347 --> 00:22:47,277 We need to go back to those and see if it has worked in the past why should we not remember and invest more in it? 141 00:22:47,817 --> 00:22:57,497 And I think that's the reality of data coming into play and in decision in driving decisions on many levels. 142 00:22:58,592 --> 00:23:06,902 Even local level allows people to maybe start to think more together, more holistically. 143 00:23:06,902 --> 00:23:13,512 So it's not that we need to think how many trees we have to save in this plant, in this community. 144 00:23:13,812 --> 00:23:19,932 This is how it used to be probably this centralized planning, but there is space for every actor. 145 00:23:19,932 --> 00:23:34,772 So for every young person, but also policy maker in local communities, in small communities to open up some dialogue, to talk together and to drive together the development of that community, that values the young people. 146 00:23:35,072 --> 00:23:45,742 So at least what I read in this one of the conclusions also that most rural policies ignore youth and many youth policies ignore rural youth. 147 00:23:45,768 --> 00:24:07,108 It's time to have a bridge between those and probably NGOs for sure, youth sector has that active role, a bridge builder, bringing that voice, that need, that shading light on the fact that young people are diverse in community all over the place, in the rural community as well, they are diverse. 148 00:24:07,468 --> 00:24:12,748 And this diversity has to be seen as a positive thing and as a driver of change as well. 149 00:24:14,108 --> 00:24:14,738 Darek: Thank you, Tanya. 150 00:24:14,768 --> 00:24:17,048 You basically very nicely summarized this discussion. 151 00:24:17,078 --> 00:24:24,128 But I still would like to come back to the policy level and also a little bit connecting to what you were saying. 152 00:24:24,158 --> 00:24:40,653 In some of the previous episodes of our podcast when we were discussing digitalization, social inclusion and young people, we hosted some of the youth workers who are coming from a rural areas, who were doing detached youth work, like the example of Scottish 153 00:24:40,653 --> 00:24:55,763 Highlands, where they managed to really create this sense of of having an impact, of actually shaping the local community and having a voice through using, for example, social media, and getting in engaged with local politicians, which they never did actually. 154 00:24:55,763 --> 00:24:58,393 So there are really this examples where it's possible. 155 00:24:58,393 --> 00:25:06,388 And what you said, Karen, yes, I agree that most of the youth work is done by NGOs, but in this case, it's actually the public service. 156 00:25:06,388 --> 00:25:08,538 It's something that's provided by the government. 157 00:25:08,548 --> 00:25:10,078 Thank you, Tanya, for what you said. 158 00:25:11,368 --> 00:25:18,678 Yeah, I was very surprised when reading the paper, a lot of youth policies, actually that tackle the issue of rural youth are quite outdated. 159 00:25:19,078 --> 00:25:26,383 Some of them come from seventies, eighties, which probably doesn't reflect very much the world we are living nowadays. 160 00:25:26,473 --> 00:25:40,333 Some of it is recent, like the Charter that you mentioned, Tanya, which has been used by the Council of Europe a lot, especially in the projects on social rights with young people in disadvantaged neighborhoods and also ENTER project that is also mentioned in the paper. 161 00:25:41,453 --> 00:25:46,673 We were talking about standards, the needs of policies that are mentioned in the conclusions of the paper. 162 00:25:46,823 --> 00:25:47,943 So, what now? 163 00:25:48,693 --> 00:25:52,683 What can be done now, for example, in the Advisory Council? 164 00:25:52,743 --> 00:26:02,283 Is there anything done by the youth voice in the Advisory Council in the Council of Europe to advance these policies or the standards that we are talking about? 165 00:26:03,168 --> 00:26:04,908 Karen: Thank you, Darek for the question. 166 00:26:05,338 --> 00:26:29,146 So in this mandate, the Advisory Council established a portfolio on young people in the rural communities, which have been working in the last one year and a half in order to understand whether the policies that are in place, the recommendations under policy documents are in place can be reinforced in order to make more changes in, in terms of rural youth. 167 00:26:29,806 --> 00:26:43,266 And I can say that now rural youth is already reflected in the priorities of the youth sector for the next two years and also in the priorities of the European Youth Foundation. 168 00:26:43,246 --> 00:26:48,550 So this is one of the successes of the work that Advisory Council has put together. 169 00:26:49,330 --> 00:27:09,919 On the other note, we have established a working group within the Joint Council on Youth to explore the possibilities of possible new measures that we can propose to the youth sector, to the Committee of Ministers in order to reflect the issues, needs and aspirations 170 00:27:09,919 --> 00:27:22,889 of rural youth in our policy documents and come up with new measures possibly to tackle the rural youth issues intersectionally and come up with tailor made mechanisms and measures. 171 00:27:22,925 --> 00:27:47,199 So, based on the consultations and also based on the review of the current recommendations one of them you already mentioned, or two of them, we came up with the proposal for the Joint Council to establish a drafting group, which will work on the CM recommendation especially on rural youth, on their social, economic and political participation. 172 00:27:47,849 --> 00:28:02,314 I think when we talk about the political participation and economic participation, it's to me, it's a little bit unrealistic, when rural youth are really struggling with their social rights. 173 00:28:02,464 --> 00:28:14,654 So if they don't have a good education, they have an issue with finding a job or having a housing, we cannot expect them to be part of any decision making processes. 174 00:28:15,224 --> 00:28:26,634 So, that's why we need to tackle this participation from social economic and political aspects all together in order to have some effective and productive work for rural youth. 175 00:28:27,234 --> 00:28:40,570 Tanya: Maybe just to complement that rural youth was part of the previous Croatian presidency of the EU focus of the EU youth dialogue. 176 00:28:40,810 --> 00:28:51,425 And actually that was also an important momentum to bring up, based on the consultation that the youth dialogue does and to have this conference focused on it. 177 00:28:51,485 --> 00:28:53,315 And there are Council conclusions. 178 00:28:53,555 --> 00:29:07,690 It's very important that the tool major European organizations that have focus on youth that they go hand-in-hand, that they go in parallel and then each of them thinks, what can they do better? 179 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:14,390 How they can deploy the instruments and the tools they have for supporting young people? 180 00:29:15,110 --> 00:29:17,540 How can they complement each other? 181 00:29:17,660 --> 00:29:21,650 And this is where I think that this research is important as well. 182 00:29:21,690 --> 00:29:23,670 Of course we could not look into everything. 183 00:29:24,405 --> 00:29:35,085 But already here, there is so much as a good basis to start to have this more coherent and complimentary reflection on who can do what. 184 00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:45,040 For example, how can the new youth programs of the EU be better adjusted, be more open, be more tailored as well? 185 00:29:45,100 --> 00:29:50,920 Just like the European Youth Foundation has to reflect how to make their granting offers. 186 00:29:51,605 --> 00:29:53,705 More accessible and so on. 187 00:29:53,765 --> 00:30:06,215 So at all levels, it's not just with funding, it's at all levels that we have to think and rethink what we have, if it works enough and if it's accessible enough and if it can help have an impact. 188 00:30:07,995 --> 00:30:20,955 Adina: Well, I would say that basically we're somehow better than we were two years ago, because as Tanya was mentioning where it was during the Croatian presidency and we have some strong recommendations and we also had the consultations with young people. 189 00:30:21,975 --> 00:30:30,685 We have the, yeah the working group and the willingness of the Council of Europe of taking, furthering the agenda, the subject. 190 00:30:31,345 --> 00:30:35,675 We also have this beginning of a research process with the paper. 191 00:30:35,755 --> 00:30:42,725 I would say that except changing the approach to the rights based perspective. 192 00:30:42,935 --> 00:30:45,725 We know what the needs and challenges are. 193 00:30:45,725 --> 00:31:01,490 And basically I would say that they're not that much different that young people in general I would like at times to start speaking of the interests and aspirations, not of the needs because yeah, we are speaking a lot about all these needs, but they're still there. 194 00:31:01,490 --> 00:31:07,540 And if the responses are not happening, then let's start maybe with the interests and aspirations. 195 00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:19,660 Even if some policies and programs might have not been successful just because they were developed for young people and not consulting them and having them involved in the process. 196 00:31:20,170 --> 00:31:26,790 And I would say that this goes with the aspirations and interests because developing things for them would not work. 197 00:31:28,060 --> 00:31:33,820 And yeah, this is why we need young people in the process and to understand what they want in fact. 198 00:31:34,450 --> 00:31:53,035 And I would really like to see, a lot of things happening with and for young people living in the rural communities as for the policy domain will having get mentioned in the national youth strategies that young people in the rural areas are there, it's not enough. 199 00:31:53,035 --> 00:31:55,285 You need measures to support. 200 00:31:55,285 --> 00:32:09,955 You also need money because yeah it's a wonderful philosophical subject, but in the end without the financial allocation would not work, but I really want to see the the discourse, moving to aspirations and interests a bit. 201 00:32:10,415 --> 00:32:15,335 But somehow let's stop working only on the project based approach. 202 00:32:15,335 --> 00:32:18,185 So the project is finished and then the intervention is finished. 203 00:32:18,925 --> 00:32:23,875 And let's ask somehow, let's try to get the support of the authorities to, to continue. 204 00:32:23,875 --> 00:32:28,195 So let's seriously think about the sustainability of our actions. 205 00:32:29,131 --> 00:32:32,591 Darek: It was a very good summary of what we were talking about in this episode. 206 00:32:33,631 --> 00:32:35,021 Thank you,Adi na. 207 00:32:35,051 --> 00:32:37,741 Thank you, Tanya and Karen for your input. 208 00:32:37,831 --> 00:32:46,451 The research paper is available on the partnership website, and you can find the link to the research paper in the notes to this episode. 209 00:32:46,511 --> 00:32:48,561 Thanks a lot and goodbye.