Caring and Sharing Communities

The background to the project is the situation of disadvantaged people in rural regions of Europe. There is a lack of shopping facilities, medical/social care, mobility services, opportunities to ...

As part of the Erasmus project, Caring & Sharing Communities were to be designed and established in 5 selected pilot communities in the three partner countries Germany, Austria and Italy. To this end, citizen participation processes were to be carried out, accompanied by trained employees of the partner organisations. As part of the participation processes, the process facilitators qualify committed local citizens to develop needs-based, location-specific concepts and to set up Caring & Sharing Communities - e.g. as a citizens' association - and to manage and lead them sustainably. Volunteers and future employees in the Caring & Sharing Communities will receive tailored training for their respective activities, e.g. as interviewers for neighbourhood visits or as everyday companions to support people in their own homes. The aim was to create a multipliable model process that can be used by other process facilitators as a basis for further community processes in rural regions using the (training) materials developed and tested during the project.