26/09/2024

RURACTIVE Open Days – successful project kick-off in all local Dynamos

RURACTIVE has now officially kicked off in all its 12 local Dynamos. Over the summer of 2024, Dynamos held interactive Open Days for and with their local communities to introduce the project. Empowering communities to act for change can only be possible if local actors actively shape and drive that change themselves. Therefore, community actors were invited to learn more about the goals of RURACTIVE and play an active part in its activities.

The Open Day gave participants the chance to get an overview of the RURACTIVE consortium, the project approach and its overall set-up. This included an introduction to the six core topic areas, the three cross-cutting issues and four innovation categories.

Selected stakeholders were also introduced and invited to join the Local Task Force which is the core working group driving forward the different smart, and community-led solutions for each of the chosen topic areas. All Dynamos had already identified the topics that are considered most relevant and crucial to the development of their local area ahead of time. For each of them, the Local Task Force will support Dynamos in identifying particular local challenges and most pressing needs.

The overall goal for the Dynamos is the development of a Local Action Plan that outlines the co-developed solutions along with a timeline and required resources for its implementation. This will be achieved through multiple workshops with the first one taking place in all Dynamos throughout September and October. It will focus on shaping the vision for the local rural area and the identification of pressing local challenges to be addressed.

Please see below for some impressions from the Open Days across the different Dynamo locations:

D1 - Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland