Between November 10 and 12, we visited Sicily in the Madonie mountain range as part of our Empowered Women For Rural Development Eramus+ program. This time, Katalin Tadanaj-Baranyi (Head of the Éltető Balaton-felvidékért Egyesület) and Réka Oszkai (Head of the Kisfaludy Sándor Cultural Center, Library and Memorial House) accompanied us.
The first day was chosen as the most beautiful village in Italy in 2019, In Petralia Soprana We spent the day together. The topic of the day was getting to know each other, as well as a joint training program and game about the role of local governments, their positive and negative experiences, expectations, problems, and good practices. It was interesting that very similar problems emerged from different countries: the overly bureaucratic system, the insufficiently transparent system, and the role of personal relationships.
The group tried to formulate proposals to the municipalities:
- Establishing a transparent and fair operating system
- easing the overly bureaucratic operation
- preparatory programs for those who do not have the necessary financial and management knowledge
- Development of services: open dialogues, development and mentoring of businesses and civil organizations, providing them with the necessary knowledge
- Creating a mindset, a more communal existence, thinking in community, and developing effective communication
After a city tour, we met with representatives of the local/regional governments, who reported the following:
- Good relationships with local businesses and organizations
- They agreed on changing the over-exploited operation
- They generally spoke about the situation in the Madonie region: depopulation, few opportunities (employment opportunities: public sector, salt mines, tourism, agriculture)
- It's hard to attract young people back
- The traffic is very problematic; it can be solved almost exclusively by car
- COVID changed things in that many young people came back to their parents' homes because of the quarantine and tried to study and work remotely; it was a kind of rediscovery of rural Sicily.
- Contradictorily, however, more people have returned and worked from home in areas that require only internet and a computer because of COVID.
- Municipalities are supporting the relocation, organizing co-working spaces, programs, and trying to improve collaboration and bring the actors together.
On the second day To Porto Di Terrara We visited and the theme was rediscovering the countryside. We met three loggers who run a campsite, transmit a way of life, and hold events. Their principle is not really based on making a profit; rather, the main goal is to achieve slower growth and value creation.
On the last day, a cattle farm welcomed us as guests (Azienda Agricola Grazia IvidataThey make cheese from milk on the farm, they deliver it to restaurants, and they have some retail partners as well. Due to COVID, they had to reduce the number of animals, because many things were closed for the whole year, but currently they have about 50-60 head of cattle. They make about 45-50 kg of cheese from about 500 liters of milk daily.
We returned home with a wealth of experiences and useful information, which we are trying to use to develop rural development in our partner countries.