WORKSHOP REPORT OF FINNISH VISIT

The first local seminar was held on the fourth day of the exchange. Thirteen hosts and visitors took part in the local seminar. The local seminar focused on the practical benefits gained from the exchange. Most participants found it to be too early to be able to present any further developed ideas. Some preliminary ideas and areas of common interests were found and presented during the workshop. These will be further developed during the next exchange in Northern Ireland and Sweden and also locally in the local community groups.

As a result of the workshop and the first exchange visit, the participants from Sweden, Northern Ireland and Finland came up with the following areas of interest for future co-operation.

• Exchanging information about visitors centres in the different areas in order to find out the key to success.

• Developing the village audits as a common tool in the development of local communities (local democracy) 

• Co-operation between tourism projects in the areas, finding new ideas, developing the marketing of tourism products. 

• Strategies in order to make people stay/ move into/ come back to the communities

• Local welfare models - social security and services for elderly, children and excluded people in the local communities - what can we learn from each other in the struggle to maintain the local welfare?

• The fight against unemployment - projects, courses and creating new opportunities

• IT (Information- communication technology) as a tool in communicating and exchanging information.

• IT and videoconferencing used as tools in creating possibilities for distance and open learning

• Youth work

• Alternative energy - renewal energies - farmers.

• Environmental issues

• How to make business (marketing) and create networks, contacts in the three countries. 

WORKSHOP REPORT OF SWEDISH VISIT

After having seen the surrounding projects, which are going on in accordance with the Leader Programme representatives from Finland, Northern Ireland and Sweden gathered in Lysvik for a very interesting and informative seminar on the People-to People Project. 

Northern Ireland, which, in this group, is the oldest member of the EU, has come farthest in their way of organising and administrating different issues among the community members.  This is of great importance, in order to get everybody to feel engaged in, and part of, what is going on in the community.  Sweden and Finland have a lot to learn on this subject.

The representatives from Northern Ireland informed us about their type of project – the Broughshane Flower Project – that has a deeper sense of goal in bringing the community together, which is an important issue in Northern Ireland.  No matter what age, religion or political view – this community has found a goal of mutual interest in this environmental project.  People are showing pride in their community, where everybody is working towards the same goal; quite an interesting way of tackling this type of problem.

Generally, we face the same kind of problems in the three countries.  We need to find ways to keep the population at a level where we can still feel that we have a living countryside.  We need to find solutions to keep the younger population remaining in the area, or at least make it attractive for them to return to after having finished studying in other areas.

During this seminar, where we have shared some interesting ways of working, we have come to the conclusion that, in order to succeed; we have to create a network on a local level.  The purpose is to get all local organisations involved in, and informed on all work that should be done in the community.  Also, we have to learn to see the possibilities in the surroundings, so that we can establish a living community, sustainable on a long time basis.  Last, but not the least, we must learn to show pride in what we achieve in our community!

Potential Projects for co-operation

Our suggestions for further co-operation between the three of us would be to exchange experience in tangible areas, such as Activity Tourism, Cultural Tourism and Environmental tourism, all three connected to each other in some ways.  By this established co-operation, we can all learn from each other’s mistakes and share them (in order to save time and money!)

Another possible exchange-project brought up for discussion, was the way to deal with people’s involvement (or rather lack of involvement) in society.  The Swedish and Finnish delegates found it difficult to get local inhabitants involved in the projects.  We feel that it is important to engage all citizens in the community, especially the younger population.  It is important that we all take part in the development of a living community.  All three countries need to create a method to involve the youth in our developing process of the projects.  As already mentioned Northern Ireland has come much farther in dealing with this problem, having created a local network.  It would be very interesting to create this kind of network between the three countries, for a continuous exchange of co-operation on this matter.

As optimistic as we are, we hope for a future where we can make our living in a thriving community in the countryside which is attractive to tourists as well as entrepreneurs who would like to settle down here.  This is of fundamental importance, whether in Finland, Northern Ireland or Sweden!  Not only would it stimulate the rest of society, bet also give us all a chance to influence mutually for a better understanding, people to people.

Northern Ireland Workshop Report

The workshop focused on the visiting participants from Finland and Sweden given an overview on their observations during their five-day visit to the North Antrim area of Northern Ireland.

The method that was used was one where participants provided input in terms of the:

• Similarities and difference

• Strengths and weaknesses.

Similarities:

• Each of the participants identified the similarity of having to employ specialist staff to carry out work and produce professional documents.

• Difficulty in motivating communities, especially ‘young people’

Differences

• Network is able to provide guidance and support to groups in the North Antrim area.

• Swedish groups has more input from volunteers in their area

• There is no paid staff in either Finland or Sweden

• Swedish groups recently have to adopt a self –help ethos, which they haven’t been used to.

Strengths

• Group meetings were informal, which allowed for full participation

• Full time Development Officers allowed greater concentration

• With the compact village structure it enables facilities to be easily demonstrated to visitors

• The facility of a community centre is a great resource of village use

• Groups have addressed and tackled a number of realistic projects

• There appears to be easier access to European funding programmes

• Overall the area does not appear to be suffering from de-population

• The group meetings are short and efficient

Weaknesses

• Better use should be made of the natural resources in the area.

• Presentation of villages and village shops should be improved to attract visitors to stay longer

• Overall there is a difficulty of getting people involved in community activity.

• Activity tourism should be promoted in the area to attract tourists

• More community facilities should be provided should as community centres for community activity

• resource of the schools in each of the village should be better used in terms of out of school hours for the community as a whole.

Ideas for future projects:

• Establish a structure to facilitate communication with the three countries over a long period of time, using the worldwide web and design a dedicated web page.

• An exchange programme of the schools

• Learn from the network structure that has been established in North Antrim