Youth and Rural Development Model

Background As KOP Youth Association, we have revealed the needs and expectations of the youth to be a part of the production process in the countryside and to turn to agricultural production with the projects and meetings we have held since 2018. We have prepared our project to raise role model young people in order to meet the new needs and expectations of the youth that emerged with Covid19, to contribute to the process of a self-sufficient Anatolian geography in the face of possible food crises in the world. As Turkey, we have fertile agricultural lands and a great youth potential, but we have policy inadequacies in bringing youth and fertile agricultural lands together. Based on the idea that as Turkey, the needs and expectations of the youth should be read correctly and role model youth should be raised, we prepared our project in cooperation with a public non-governmental organization and presented it to the Turkish National Agency. As KOP Youth Association, we have prepared our Youth and Rural Development Model Project as KOP Youth Association, as we think that the farming profession should be respected as the main step for youth to turn to rural and agricultural production and to solve the employment problem in our country. Objectives Since 2018, we have revealed the needs and expectations of the youth to turn to agricultural production and the development process in the countryside, with the workshops we have held on a national scale in 7 regions and the summit we held in Konya with the participation of young people from 81 provinces. Through our Youth and Rural Development Model project, we implemented our project in order to raise role model individuals for the youth, whose needs and expectations we determined, to be a part of the rural production process. With the Covid19 process, we wanted the young people in our country to learn and integrate good practices into their lives in order to raise role model young people for bringing together the youth and the countryside by evaluating agricultural production areas in order for countries to be self-sufficient and not to cause disruption in the food chain in the face of possible food crises. As KOP Youth Association, we prepared and realized our project with the desire to train young people who live in rural areas and wish to live in rural areas, and to implement a process management approach where we put forward approaches and models to encourage young people's desire to live in rural areas by seeing good practices in place. Implementation As KOP Youth Association, we carried out learning, teaching and training activities within the scope of our project. We held our events in Turkey with the partnership of KOP Youth Association from Turkey, KOP Regional Development Administration and SCAMBIEUROPEI Association from Italy. We produced materials with a non-formal education-based learning approach as a result of the digital meetings we held with our partners during the covid19 process, especially in order to make children love agricultural production from an early age. We increased their interest in nature and agricultural production by delivering 1000 pieces of material to kindergarten students. As KOP Youth Association, we negotiated with our partner in Turkey, KOP Regional Development Administration, and ensured the establishment of greenhouses in schools in the KOP Region in order to increase the interest of children and youth in the rural production process in the investment program. We visited the Melike Hatun Special Education Institution, one of the model greenhouses, with the participating youth as part of the training event we held in Konya, and listened to the impact of the structure established with the children and teachers on the spot, on the youth. Achievements Within the scope of the project we carried out with the partnership of KOP Regional Development Administration and SCAMBIEUROPEI Association under the coordination of KOP Youth Association, we brought together 56 young people, despite the fact that there are 44 young people from our country who are living in rural areas and who want to live in the countryside even though they live in the urban area, we both went through an education process and in order to strengthen their lives in the countryside. We conveyed the opportunities and opportunities in our country to them through bureaucrats participating from relevant institutions and organizations. The second event we held was the Youth and Agriculture Camp with the participation of 120 young people from 81 provinces. The youth both talked about good practices and had the opportunity to see them on the spot. Through the activities carried out as a result of our project, we produced non-formal education-based materials to make children love rural life and nature, and sent them to kindergartens in 8 provinces that we determined as pilots, and made them popular as a good practice model. As a result of the meetings we had with the KOP Administration.