Ecofindes is a young iniciative to support the rural development and to gain new skills for youngsters, mainly coming from university and interested in biology and agriculture.
While the rural areas are loosing young people, old gardens used to grow home consumed vegetables are getting unused basicly becasue owners are old people who cannot work on the fields in Summer time. Meanwhile, there are other kind of rural/farm activities such as apiculture that are getting lost due to lack of generational renovation.
De Amicitia has decide to link youngsters mainly with these two main activities (gardening and apiculture) in order to preserve such activities and the rural heritage through these Ecofindes or mini weekend work.
Participants are proposed a program that mixes volunteer work with non formal eduaction activities plus leisure activities. The out came has been a facebook page that got 500 members in less than 48 hours and the recruitment of around 30 active youngsters who are eagerly proposing activities for these weekends in different fields in a self sufficient or self organising method.
On the other hand the old people from the small village of Navarredonda they are slowly getting involved with the project. Instead of hiring their land or simply not using it, they prefer to lend it to these youngsters and as a donation get a small part of the harvest for self consuming.
Moreover some people from the city of Madrid are supporting the apiculture activity by adopting a hive and havingthe chance to visit it a get some fix ammount of kilos of honey.
Part of the harvest is taken by the young volunteers home and some is used for Summer Workcamps of De Amicitia such as the Donkey Caravan. A final selling of the vegetables and honey at the village market is planned in order to disseminate the effect of the project.
More info in:
ecofindesdeamicitia.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/groups/261870213935746/
