In this Transnational Cooperation (TNC) project youngsters from the territories of 6 Local Action Groups (LAG) discover local traditions and legends, and innovate their cultural and rural identity of today through storytelling and movie production.

Recognizing the importance of the countryside’s young citizens the LAGs, which have come together in this TNC project, want to encourage their regions’ youth to participate in rural development and more specifically in initiatives supported by the LEADER approach. “Our rural areas are growing from and with the youth - we strongly depend on them”, says Sofia Nikka from the Kolari municipality in Finland. The shared idea is that promoting the creativity of the local youth can generate added value, as it produces positive publicity for their native land, which is subject to strong depopulation.

The overall objective is to strengthen the youth’s link with the rural area in which they are growing up. More specifically, the project aims to help the youth to build a rural society based on the features of modern life, while preserving and promoting local culture and traditions. Among the wider objectives are: i) the establishment of a positive attitude towards engagement in rural business activities and traditional crafts; ii) the promotion of contact and opportunity for exchange of knowledge between older and younger people; and iii) the creation of a lasting common interactive learning platform between the partner areas, to exchange ideas, stories, traditions and experience.

At the outset, all partner LAGs invited the youth to a writing competition linking local traditions and legends with their areas’ cultural and rural identity of today. The Italian lead partner published the winning stories in a book, and partner LAGs will in the following organize 3 workshop campuses in their regions, during which professionals support the youth with the production of 12 short films, which will be based on these stories. Social media ensures publicity among the local population.