Young LEADER Forum impacts
- CAP Implementation
- CAP Strategic Plans
- Generational Renewal
- Jobs, Growth and Equality in Rural Areas
- LEADER
- Long-term Vision for Rural Areas
- Networking
- Rural Development
LAG Manager Matthias Wagner from Germany shares his insights and experiences about using LEADER to help support young people’s rural ambitions in the Leipziger Muldenland LAG territory.
Following on from our previous catchups with participants from the EU CAP Network’s Young LEADER Forum, we spoke to Matthias Wagner who took part in the event to share his insights about his experience as a Local Action Group (LAG) Manager involved in supporting young people’s rural ambitions. Reflecting on the background of his work with younger generations in Germany’s Leipziger Muldenland LAG, Matthias explains why his LAG is interested in helping young people’s participation in community-led local rural development through LEADER.
“Participation and decision-making in rural development activity can help young people identify more strongly with their region and create a willingness to take responsibility for themselves and society as a whole. In addition, local committees and institutions gain valuable experience in involving young people in decision-making processes and can prepare themselves for the future.
“That is why we defined the focus topic ‘youth participation’ in our Local Development Strategy. We aim to empower younger residents through our local projects and maintain a network of regional partners involved with youth participation. Also, we have cooperation contacts with other LAGs that focus on youth participation. These are the LAG Wesermuende-Sued (Germany), Rieska-LEADER and Keskipiste-LEADER (Finland), Trakt Piastów (Poland) and Partneriba Laukiem un Jurai (Latvia). Our cooperation with LAG Wesermuende-Sued was the initial ignition to start our youth participation activity.”
JU & ME Europe!
Matthias also highlighted what he found most useful about the Young LEADER Forum initiative in Finland, explaining that he got the possibility to talk about their experiences in youth participation in LEADER and to learn from other participants, which helped him to reflect on his work for the youth as a LAG.
He said: “Equally importantly, I was able to present the idea of our European wide cooperation project which aims to network other European LAGs interested in the Young LEADER Forum’s outcomes. These are from Finland, Latvia, France, Croatia, the Netherlands, Poland and Germany. We are now working on our idea for a common transnational cooperation project promoting youth participation. This is called 'JU & ME Europe!' - ‘JU’ is for ‘Jugend’, which means youth in the German language, and the ‘ME’ in our project title stands for ‘mentoring’.”
“Together with our cooperation partner LAG Wesermuende-Sued in Germany, we created the basis for such a project idea several years ago. We did an initial test using the ‘reverse mentoring’ methodology for youth capacity building during a previous LEADER project. This achieved very good results and experiences. That is why we want to extend the effect of this method to other Local Action Groups which are working on youth participation already or want to start youth participation in their rural areas. The cooperation project process includes research, study trips and exchange meetings between all partners, including young people.”
Matthias further explained: “JU & ME Europe will use the reverse mentoring method, which is as simple as it is powerful. Young people will be the mentors for decision-makers, like mayors, entrepreneurs and local NGOs. This reverse mentoring technique is central to our transnational cooperation project plan. It brings together young people and older people to work together in tandem on rural development issues.
“It aims to result in feasible new project proposals or ideas for better involvement of young people in different rural development fields. The goal is to identify needs and any related obstacles to create shared synergy by combining older and younger perspectives. Results can strengthen mutual understanding of common rural development priorities while giving youth a stronger voice.”
You can contact Matthias at regionalmanagement@leipzigermuldenland.de to find out more about his LAG’s youth work and the JU & ME transnational project plan.
