We are excited to announce the top three finalists in the Project of the Year category of this year’s Rural Youth Europe Awards!
A Rural Youth Project is a project where young people have worked together towards a common goal on a voluntary basis. A project in which an individual or group of young people have worked together for the benefit of themselves, their local community or the greater good.
After an internal judging process, the top three best projects have moved on to the second stage of the competition where public voting will take place on the RYE Instagram page and will count for 20% of the overall score. Judging will commence from 13:00 CEST on Wednesday 31st July to 13:00 CEST on Friday 2nd August.
The results of the Rural Youth Europe Awards 2024 will be announced on Saturday 3rd August during the Closing Ceremony of the 2024 European Rally in Estonia. Read more about the three finalists below.
Wales YFC – My Food Plate
‘My Food Plate’ is an educational 3-day event that attracted over 1,100 children from 21 different schools. It involved over 30 volunteers, officials and staff who attended from the organisation.
The aim was to encourage the youth of today to pursue an interest in farming, cooking and gardening, whilst teaching them the science and technology behind machinery, plant biology and healthy food input.
Carmarthenshire YFC Organiser, Carys Thomas, says: “This project deserves to be the Rural Youth Project of the Year 2024 as it involved children and young people from different backgrounds and demography. As well as bringing school children to the event, we asked several other organisations and groups to help us cook with the children, such as the Women’s Institute and Merched y Wawr.”
“The age demographic at our event was from the youngest being 5 or 6 to the eldest being over 80. The Young Farmers movement in Carmarthenshire brings all ages and walks of life together.”
“After extremely positive feedback, we see a need for events such as ours, to inspire and uplift rural communities across Europe. With social and economic changes, the public often forget who the backbone of our food system are: farmers.”
Landjugend Austria – See Agriculture, Taste Agriculture, Experience Agriculture
One of the main aims of this project was to put Schwoich’s agriculture and their products in the focus of society. A separate brand was created for agricultural businesses in their village called “so schmeckt Schwoich” (german brand name, standing for: “this is how Schwoich tastes”).
After a total of 17 registrations from Schwoich farmers, a graphic designer developed her own map. Consumers can see on the map where the local products are produced or can be bought.
As an additional part of this project, it was important for the Rural Youth Club Schwoich to educate the children about agriculture. So they organised a farming day at the primary school. The main focus was to educate young people about where our precious products come from and the journey food takes from production to consumption.
Lisa Kaindl from Landjugend Schwoich says: “The aim of this project is to raise awareness of agriculture in children and the population as a whole. The “Schwoich Seal of Quality” gives the farms an opportunity to present their products and market them with recognition value.”
“At the same time, the maps and the boards on the farms repeatedly draw the attention of the population to the fact that they can buy directly from the farmer on the farm. It was very important to the project group that prejudices, misunderstandings and unanswered questions are clarified and awareness of local agriculture is raised.”
Finnish 4H – Seedling Action
Seedling Action (Taimiteko in Finnish) is a Finnish initiative to increase carbon sinks, so that as an organisation and as individuals we can help tackle climate change. Seedling Action also functions as an employment activity as it provides summer jobs in planting seedlings, especially for young people under the age of 18, who are still outside the labour market.
The aim of Seedling Action is to increase hope among children and young people and also provide them with learning environments through increasing their knowledge and understanding of the climate and natural world. We train and employ young people to plant trees. These young people get to engage in concrete climate action and also receive training and work experience.
Carita Åkerblom from Finnish 4H says: “Since the beginning of the Seedling Action (starting 2019) over 900 000 trees has been planted and over 750 young people have been employed. This summer 2024, 70 young people planted 104 000 trees across an area of 52 hectares.”
“Seedling Action differs from other afforestation projects in that young people are right at the centre. Seedling Action increases young people’s climate awareness while also training them for research-based, concrete climate action. In addition, through both the training and summer work, young people are provided with a way to reduce their own climate anxiety; related research has shown that concrete actions reduce climate anxiety among young people.”
