Project n°24
INTRODUCTION
The MURCIA RURAL cooperation project (2024-2025) aims to make visible, enhance and promote the spaces, products, people and development initiatives existing in rural territories, highlighting the experience of over 30 years of the four participating Local Action Groups, as the main actors in the dynamisation of rural development in the Region of Murcia.
It is structured in 5 axes, with the following activities and final products:
KNOWING: 27 thematic conferences on spaces, destinations and products.
RECOGNIZING: 48 video documentaries to highlight the value of elderly people and promote tourist routes and 24 teaching units so that schoolchildren and families better know and value their environment.
SHARING: 8 visits between the different territories to learn about LEADER-supported experiences.
PROMOTING: 10 product tastings, 5 Fam/Press Trips and 4 pilot experiences of new rural tourism products to promote territories as tourist destinations.
VALUING: 5 documentaries to raise awareness on the work performed by LAGs of the Region of Murcia throughout its history.
The project is part of the Participatory Local Development Strategies of each partner, being funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), and the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia, under the LEADER measure of the RDP 2014-2022.
PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT
Early in 2024, the four Local Action Groups managing the Participatory Local Development Strategies, within the framework of the Rural Development Program of the Region of Murcia 2014-2022, launched the MURCIA RURAL cooperation project, whose main objective is to make visible, enhance and promote the spaces, products, people and development initiatives existing in the rural territories where they operate.
MURCIA RURAL is a joint work framework that allows the transfer of knowledge, the development of formulas and methodologies for training and collaboration, the generation of synergies and the visibility of the experience of over 30 years of Local Action Groups as the main actors in the dynamisation of rural development in the Region of Murcia.
MURCIA RURAL is structured into five action programmes:
KNOWING: a set of 27 thematic sessions on territories, destinations and products to showcase the experiences of the socio-economic agents involved in their valorisation.
RECOGNIZING: a programme for the production of video and educational resources consisting of:
• 20 documentaries to highlight the value of older people who have been key to the rural development of the Region of Murcia (MEMORABLES).
• 28 documentaries on tourist routes to promote the potential of these territories as rural tourism destinations (RUTEANDO).
• 24 teaching units so that schoolchildren and families have a better understanding of their own environment and the possibilities it offers (RECONOCER FAMILIAR).
These will soon be made publicly and openly available through the Internet and will also be disseminated through audiovisual media.
SHARING is a programme of 8 visits between the different territories participating in the project to learn about experiences developed with the support of the LAGs of the Region of Murcia.
PROMOTING: a programme promoting the attractions of the tourist destinations of the territories of RURAL MURCIA, consisting of:
• Inviting journalists and people with influence in tourism demand to participate in 5 FAM-PRESS TRIPS, so that they can learn about this tourist offer first-hand and contribute to promoting it.
• Organising 10 tastings, aimed at both the general public and professionals in the tourism and catering sector, where visitors can learn about and try the products of each region, as well as making direct contacts with producers, their associations and the entities responsible for guaranteeing their quality and authenticity.
• Developing 5 pilot experiences for the creation and testing of new rural tourism products.
VALUING: A programme focused on raising awareness through a series of 5 documentaries about the work of the LAGs throughout their over 30 years of history and their importance in the rural development of the Region of Murcia.
MURCIA RURAL has a broad territorial participation, since the development of its actions actively involves the driving forces of each territory: public administrations, public and private organizations, associations, companies, entrepreneurs, professionals, entities and prominent people involved in socioeconomic and cultural development.
MURCIA RURAL has a budget of EUR 712,820, funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), and the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia, under the LEADER measure of the RDP 2014-2022.
PRINCIPAL OBJECTIVES
The general objective of Murcia Rural is to share formulas between the different rural territories of the Region of Murcia to improve the knowledge, promotion and visibility of their resources and initiatives for socio-economic development. This involves:
• Transferring knowledge between the different participating territories and generating opportunities for collaboration between them.
• Making visible the value of these territories and of the people who inhabit them.
• Making known the activity and experience of Local Action Groups as dynamizers of rural development in the Region of Murcia.
Specific objectives
• Improving the promotion and marketing of products with distinguished and recognised quality or those that at least meet quality standards.
• Finding formulas that improve the offer for tourism and trips to these territories.
• Developing initiatives that promote the transfer of knowledge between the different territories within the cooperation project and that allow us to learn about unique initiatives from other territories not included in the territorial scope of the cooperation project.
• Making visible the work of the Local Action Groups of the Region of Murcia as entities that have sought territorial development in recent decades.
Cross-cutting objectives
• Highlighting and boosting the role of women in rural development in the Region of Murcia.
• Highlighting the environmental value of rural areas and the importance of natural and urban rural landscapes.
• Raising awareness and promoting environmental conservation and the fight against climate change.
• Exploiting the cultural heritage of elderly people, an inestimably valuable and greatly fragile intangible heritage.
• Highlighting and promoting inclusive initiatives to dynamize the youth and generational change, both private and within the associative fabric.
• Promoting intergenerational communication.
• Promoting the accessibility of resources, attending to the needs that allow the development of inclusive activities.
ADDED VALUE OF THE PROJECT
The complementarity of the Local Action Groups within the project relies in that they bring together all the rural areas of the Region of Murcia: 40 municipalities, 286 population centres and 400,000 inhabitants. Each territory has different characteristics and specialisations, whether predominantly agricultural or urban, with a rich heritage and tourist appeal. This is facilitating the emergence of important synergies between very different actors in the territory who, under the project, are finding and discovering common interests and proposing collaborations. This is leading to reinforced and amplified rural development policies in each territory. In addition, the partners possess different expertises, pooled and shared within through the joint work of technical teams participating, acting as a single multidisciplinary team.
The impact and added value of Murcia Rural relies in:
• a greater knowledge of the territories, heritage and natural resources and the potentials of the local population and of raising their awareness of an efficient, responsible and sustainable use.
• a significant enhancement and promotion of the spaces and quality products from the territories, and the meeting and collaboration between people and entities involved in their management or production.
• the promotion of social innovation initiatives related to ethnography, social memory and culture that shape the identity of the people residing in each territory, particularly, those including the elderly.
Murcia Rural is having a direct impact on 400,000 inhabitants of four rural territories. The initially planned indicators are already being exceeded: 35 Seminars and workshop (+1800 participants), 10 product tastings (+300 participants), 5 FAN-PRESS Trips (25 professional visitors), 4 pilot experiences of new tourist products (40 participants), 53 video-documentaries (total duration: 850 minutes) 24 teaching units.
The baseline for developing the project has involved uniting the strategies, objectives and cooperation actions projected in each territory of each participating LAG, within their Participatory Local Development Strategies (PLDSs), approved as planning documents and basis for the implementation of the RDP 2014-2022.
The LAGs in rural areas of the Region of Murcia have been networking for years, both informally and formally within REDERMUR, the Regional Rural Development Network they belong to since 2017. The project sprang from this prior experience, as partners felt the need to improve and structure this collaboration so it can continue and intensify in the future.
According this willing, further methodological objectives and actions have been introduced into this cooperation project with a view to:
• Establishing effective and efficient coordination formulas and transferring experiences between partners.
• Developing actions by creating sustainable resources that can be used over time.
• Highlighting the importance of the LAGs of the Region of Murcia and the possibilities of the regional networking.
• Establishing a communication plan consolidating the creation of quality content on rural development and advocating for the effective promotion of the heritage and natural resources of the territories.
• Establishing formulas that improve the skills of rural actors and dynamizing agents in the territory. The methodologies, products and results of the collaborative work developed within MURCIA RURAL will continue to be used and probably expanded in the future by REDERMUR, as well as by each partner. They may even be transferred within the framework of future cooperation projects with other territories, both at national and transnational level.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q8ZQBUO6bNyByl2cM7DYsV0F4bsSqZtg/view?usp=sharing
