"RURAL BUT CRUCIAL" YE

One of the biggest challenges contemporary Europe faces are the escalating tendency of young people to settle in urban areas and underestimation of rural areas potential. Ability to discover the potential of rural areas from labor market perspective and the development of entrepreneurial competencies among youth is of essential importance as it can have two-side strong impact; employability facilitation and rural areas development.

Nowadays rural development is more than ever before linked to entrepreneurship. Institutions and individuals promoting it now see entrepreneurship as a strategic development intervention that could accelerate the rural development process. Rural entrepreneurship in its turn has an enormous employment potential and the promotion of entrepreneurship among youngsters aimed at rural areas can be used as youth unemployment tackle strong tool.

Our working team with various non-formal learning methods and with learner-based participatory principles will create a space and conditions for young people for self-empowerment and re-evaluation of certain topics. They will identify new possibilities and develop useful personal and social skills. Meantime they will have an opportunity to meet local and see examples of successful rural entrepreneurship and get motivated as well as will motivate locals with their presence and interest in rural development.

The scale of employability is especially alarming in the Eastern Partnership countries (for example the youth unemployment rate in Armenia and Georgia is over 30%, while the same rate for the 28 EU member states is 23% ). Urban and rural population ratio is also disquieting ( for example in Armenia urbanization is more than 70%).

The proposed youth exchange therefore wants to gather 40 young people from 8 countries that are interested in rural areas beneficial potential as well as in development of their entrepreneurial competencies.