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The villages of Europe are being emptied of residents, and welcome with open arms immigrants - Walla! news

2020-10-23T19:36:58.725Z


While 85% of Spain's territory is made up of rural areas - only 20% of the country's population lives there. As a result, the country has embarked on various initiatives to "revive" the countryside with the help of immigrants, mainly from Latin America. Similar programs have been launched in Sweden, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands and Germany


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The villages of Europe are being emptied of residents, and welcome immigrants with open arms

While 85% of Spain's territory is made up of rural areas - only 20% of the country's population lives there.

As a result, the country has embarked on various initiatives to "revive" the countryside with the help of immigrants, mainly from Latin America.

Similar programs have been launched in Sweden, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands and Germany

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Friday, October 23, 2020, 6:34 p.m.

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In the video: Madrid enters a second closure, against its will (Photo: Reuters)

As life in the Venezuelan homeland turned into a struggle, Catherine Negrin and her family packed a bag and traveled thousands of miles to northwestern Spain, trying to attract new residents.

Despite well-paid jobs in the military and education, Negrin said the shortage and rising prices of everyday goods like food and medicine has made life in the state capital Caracas a real challenge.



Last February, the couple, along with their three children, moved to a small village in the province of Galicia in Spain.

According to Negrin, they already had relatives in the countryside and the cost of living was affordable.

"Because of our financial situation and with three children, we could not live in the city," she said.



Negrin's family moved to the area with the help of the Confederation of Rural Development Centers - one of several initiatives aimed at repopulating the depleted areas of the Spanish population, including by encouraging residents and foreigners to settle in remote areas.

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A jump of about 10% in the rate of home seekers in the area.

The village of Dorolo de la Sierra in northern Spain (Photo: AP)

According to the European Association for Local Development, based in Brussels, while 85% of Spain's territory is made up of rural areas - only 20% of the country's population lives there.

Rural development experts argue that immigrants can “revive” neglected rural areas by maintaining schools, running businesses and providing basic services, such as transportation.



"The impact of foreigners in these uninhabited areas is crucial," said Maria Coto Sauras, a rural development expert and public policy consultant from Madrid.

According to her, the arrival of new residents in these areas "breaks" the "vicious circle of population loss, and with it the loss of economic activity, services, etc., which reduce the attraction to these areas."

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A girl plays ball on an empty street in the ancient village of Haru, in northern Spain (Photo: AP)

In 2018 the Confederation of Rural Development in Spain launched an online platform called “Back to the Village”, which collects information for people considering moving to rural Spain, including opening jobs, homes and small businesses, offered for sale or rent.



The platform connects potential settlers to rural development centers in eight different provinces in Spain, where they can get further advice and help with moving house, if they decide to continue the move.



However, house prices may start to rise soon, as the long months of closure during the Corona period are driving European city dwellers to move to rural areas, according to real estate experts. In France, for example, according to a survey conducted by a real estate portal Since February in the class of home seekers in rural areas coming from Paris.

The changes began in the 1960s

Public policy experts argue that demographic changes in Spain's rural population began in the 1960s and 1970s, when the shift to the use of machinery in agriculture left many manual jobs, leading many to seek employment in cities.



The villages they left behind were called "ghost villages", and in some of them you can buy an entire village of a few houses for less than one hundred thousand euros.

Alongside the "Back to the Village" program, there are other programs that try to breathe life into these villages, including the "New Routes" initiative, which helps African immigrants find new work as shepherds or as professionals.



Another project, called "Living Villages", offers free information and guidance to anyone considering moving to rural areas.

Also at the beginning of the year, a program was launched by the Association of Towns with a Future - a non-governmental organization that helps immigrants, mainly from Latin America, to relocate to the country's rural areas.



The goal is to develop the existing network of associations with which it works - especially to increase the number of jobs advertised on the site.

According to Koto Sauras, "Success (ours) can be measured through the people we helped make the move, see how they improved their quality of life - closer to nature, less stressed and with a cost of living better adapted to reality."

"Ghost Villages."

A village in northern Spain (Photo: AP)

Spain is not alone in this situation on the continent.

Countries such as Sweden, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands and Germany have also launched programs focusing on bringing immigrants to live in rural areas.

In Sweden, for example, the "Rostanga Together" project was founded in 2007 in the small village of Rostanga, by a group of parents who realized that the local school was under threat of closure due to population thinning.

They set up an independent stock holding company to raise funds for investment in vacant properties in the village.



When 300 refugees were placed in the Rostanga shelter in 2015, the association developed a joint initiative in which the locals and asylum seekers renovated the houses together voluntarily.

Rustanga Together president Nils Phillips said several refugees who had been granted permanent residency had chosen to stay in the village, and are now renting the apartments they helped renovate, as tenants at the development company.



"It's not an integration project and that's also why it's successful. We're working on property development and making things happen," he said.

"It does not matter where you are from, but your skills and willingness to be involved. Many have received job offers because they have become involved in a network of professionals."

Horses in a field in a rural area in northern Spain (Photo: AP)

Despite optimistic intentions, policy experts say leaving a homeland problematic behind, and resettlement in a remote area of ​​a foreign country - especially when you do not have a job - can take a heavy toll on refugees and immigrants. "They may have to deal with the post-traumatic stress of moving house, so mental health services should also be made available to them," said Clara Potty, director of research at the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.



For Negrin, adopting a whole new lifestyle abroad has not always been easy. She struggled to find work, and was forced to seek social assistance again. Unlike Negrin, her husband found work in the local metal industry immediately, and her children are already adjusting to life in the new place. A boy from Honduras, with Latin roots. They get along together, "she said." Our children have adapted well to life in the countryside - faster than us. "

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Source: walla

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