This activity focuses on celebrating and sharing traditional and contemporary aspects of rural culture within your new urban community.
By collaborating with urban youth, you’ll explore how rural heritage, skills, and modern innovations can be integrated into city life, fostering mutual respect and understanding. Together, you’ll create opportunities for cultural exchange that highlight the richness of rural life and allow urban communities to experience its unique contributions.
Completing this activity will give you skills in cultural expression, event organisation, and cross-community collaboration. You will also have the chance to inspire others, promote rural heritage, and foster a deeper appreciation of rural identity within urban spaces.
First, get inspired!
The second Rural Youth Project Ideas Festival was held at Wiston Lodge, Lanarkshire. It gathered 50 young rural people together to share ideas, network, develop new skills, and discuss how to improve life for themselves and their peers.
The exhibition "Digital Storytelling" presented the results of the "Digital Storytelling" youth exchange project funded by the EU Erasmus +. During the exhibition, participants presented several youth issues (unemployment in particular) through the pictures they had taken during the project. Each participant took his turn to present his pictures, share the story behind them, and share his overall impressions.
Now, take action:
Completing the following activities will create meaningful opportunities for rural-urban cultural exchange. Through collaborative projects and creative showcases, you’ll help urban communities experience and appreciate rural heritage while celebrating the evolving culture of rural youth.
- Host a rural heritage showcase: Partner with urban youth to organise a showcase that features traditional rural crafts, music, foods, and storytelling. Include hands-on activities like workshops or tasting sessions, encouraging attendees to interact with rural culture meaningfully.
- Rural stories digital project: Work with urban peers to create a digital storytelling project (e.g., blog, video series, or social media campaign) that shares personal stories of rural life and experiences. Focus on individual perspectives, capturing what it means to grow up in a rural area, the challenges and joys, and how these experiences shape your worldview. Share it with an urban audience to foster connection and understanding.
- Rural-urban “Innovation Spotlight” event: Work with urban youth to organise an event highlighting rural innovations, such as sustainable farming practices, eco-friendly construction, or community-led tech projects. Invite local experts or entrepreneurs to share insights, inspiring urban audiences with the modern advancements in rural areas and exploring ways to integrate these practices in urban settings.
Get your badge.
Complete some activities from the list above and apply for a badge (=click the “Get this badge” button below) by sharing your reflections, photos, or project summaries highlighting how sharing rural culture has helped bridge understanding and celebrate diversity in urban spaces.
Who is behind this activity?
Cities of Learning Network partners invite you to learn and do something about European Youth Goal #6, Moving Rural Youth Forward. We value your efforts and contributions and want to reward you with badge recognition.
Contact us for more details about the Erasmus+ co-funded project "European Youth Goals for Cities of Learning."
- System&G, Greece - the project lead partner
- CODEC, Belgium
- Badgecraft, Lithuania
- System&G Finland
Disclaimer: We are grateful for the ideas generated by youth leaders and youth workers during the international study visits. To create this activity, humans collaborated with AI using the Youth Goals Hub GPT custom-built version, informed and inspired by the best youth work practices.