Rural Voices

In this episode of Rural Voices, we return to the Powering Change – Empowering Rural Youth for Energy Communities project to explore what renewable energy looks like in practice across rural Europe.We hear from Sophie Bell in Ireland, a young farmer introducing renewable energy solutions on her farm, and Marina Sainz de la Maza Ortiz in Spain, who shares the realities of trying to establish a community-led energy project in her local area. Together, they discuss the opportunities, challenges and importance of ensuring rural communities have a voice in the energy transition.From solar-powered farming to grassroots energy activism, this episode highlights how young people are helping shape a more sustainable future for rural areas.Read our interactive guide ‘Getting Started with Rural Energy Communities’ here: https://rebrand.ly/02933e and our step-by-step guide ‘Building your own energy community’ here: https://rebrand.ly/c832ee.

In this episode we’re taking you back to the first ever European Rural Youth Forward Conference. Earlier this year, around 100 rural youth leaders and European policy-makers gathered in Piloña, Spain, for an event dedicated to strengthening rural youth policy-making across Europe.Hear from Ketrin, Spyros, Rosie, Martin and Jana from the RYE team, as they catch up with some of the conference delegates about their work ensuring rural voices are heard at a national and European level. They speak to Matías Rubio (EPA! Association), Lenka Lejčková (National Local Action Group Network of the Czech Republic), Richard Beattie (Young Farmers’ Clubs of Ulster) and Landry Gourdon (Familles Rurales). Links: National Local Action Group Network of the Czech Republic - 21 examples of Participation and Engagement: https://rebrand.ly/9f54d4 Young Farmers’ Clubs of Ulster: www.yfcu.org Familles Rurales: https://www.famillesrurales.org Find out more about the Rural Youth Forward project: https://rebrand.ly/93e0f9 The podcast is part of Rural Youth Forward project and its European Rural Youth Forward Conference event. This podcast has been produced by Rural Youth Europe with the financial support of European Union and the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not reflect the official opinion of the Council of Europe and European Union.

What happens when rural youth take control of their own stories? Recorded during our 2026 Study Session on media literacy, this episode brings together voices from across Europe to challenge stereotypes, unpack misconceptions, and share real experiences of rural life. What are the hidden strengths of rural communities? And what are the misconceptions of living in rural areas? Co-produced by the participants of the Study Session, you will hear 19 different voices from across Europe sharing their thoughts. This episode was recorded at the European Youth Centre in Budapest in collaboration with the Council of Europe Youth Department. 

In this episode, part of our Powering Change: Empowering Rural Youth for Energy Communities project, we’re in Brussels with the Rural Youth Europe (RYE) Policy Committee talking all about the power of building an energy community. What are energy communities? And what are EU institution doing to support their development? Dan chats to RYE Policy Manager Adriana Borsellino, as well as energy community experts Maria Bellou from Electra Energy Cooperative and Óscar Güell from REScoop.eu. We also hear from Policy Committee members Sheila Keeshan (Ireland), Ingars Jēkabsons (Latvia), Marieke Hoehne (Germany) and Kristian Sivula (Finland).   Read our interactive guide ‘Getting Started with Rural Energy Communities’ here:  https://rebrand.ly/02933e and our step-by-step guide ‘Building your own energy community’ here: https://rebrand.ly/c832ee . You can also find out more about REScoop here: www.rescoop.eu  

It’s our last episode of 2025 and we are catching up with all the winners of this year’s Rural Youth Europe Awards. Dan chats to Jillian Kennedy from the Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs (SAYFC) about this year’s Project of the Year - the Respect Campaign. He also talks to Fabian Kogler from Rural Youth Austria, Inspirational Person of the Year, and Ewan Aitken from Strathearn JAC in Scotland, the Inspirational Club of the Year. You can also find out more about the SAYFC Big Build campaign here: www.sayfc.org/donate/sayfcs-big-build/. The podcast is part of Rural Youth Forward project with the aim of showcasing good examples of rural youth organisations, projects and leaders. This podcast has been produced by Rural Youth Europe with the financial support of European Union and the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not reflect the official opinion of the Council of Europe and European Union.

In this episode we’re in Latvia for the Autumn Seminar 2025. Hosted by Latvian 4H, with support from Latvian Young Farmers, this seminar brought together rural youth leaders from across Europe. This episode is produced and presented by the participants of the Autumn Seminar and here they present to you the building blocks of a rural youth organisation. They cover our organisation’s vision and mission, the structure and governance, fundraising opportunities and how we encourage volunteer engagement. This podcast has been produced by Rural Youth Europe with the financial support of European Union and the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not reflect the official opinion of the Council of Europe and European Union.

As part of the ‘Rural Youth Forward’ project, in this episode we are delving into our research on the different realities and trends on rural youth participation in policy-making across Europe. Dan chats to Victor Cătălin Toma and Catalina Gurgu from the Active Development Association about their work on youth participation, as well as their flagship project - the European Youth Village programme. Find out more and read our Rural Youth Forward resources here: https://bit.ly/3MLXfmS. This podcast has been produced by Rural Youth Europe with the financial support of European Union and the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not reflect the official opinion of the Council of Europe and European Union.

We’re at the 2025 European Rally in Slovenia. Hosted by our member organisation ZSPM - the Slovenian Rural Youth Association  - this year’s rally is all about empowering young people for active participation. Why do you do rural youth work? What motivates you to give back to your local community? In this episode the participants will be interviewing each other about their own experiences. The podcast is part of Rural Youth Forward project and its European Rural Youth Summer Forum event. This podcast has been produced by Rural Youth Europe with the financial support of European Union and the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. The opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not reflect the official opinion of the Council of Europe and European Union.

Recorded at the Rural Youth Europe Study Session 2025, this episode focusses on rural advocacy. What is it? How do we engage with decision makers? What are the priorities of rural youth? Listen to young people from across Europe sharing their thoughts, as well as tips on how you can start your advocacy journey. This episode was recorded at the European Youth Centre in Budapest in collaboration with the Council of Europe Youth Department. 

In our final episode of 2024, Dan is joined by all the winners of this year’s Rural Youth Europe Awards, which aim to showcase the very best of rural youth across Europe. Hear from the team from Landjugend Schwoich who were responsible for this year’s Project of the Year - See Agriculture, Taste Agriculture, Experience Agriculture. Dan also chats to Teele Tõnisson from Estonian 4H, this year’s Inspirational Person of the Year, as well as Joanne Malone and Catriona Bourke, from Castlebar Macra, this year’s Inspirational Club of the Year.

Care to stay. Dare to change. We are at the 2024 European Rally in Voore, Estonia, hosted by Estonian 4H. Dan chats to the Estonian prep team and participants throughout the course of the week, which aims to develop our entrepreneurial mindsets. We also discuss the week’s theme with Kerli Ats, CEO of Estonian Farmers Federation and Katrīne Leitāne, member ... Read More

In this final COCOREADO special of Rural Voices, Dan chats to COCOREADO ambassador Peter Schön from Austria about his COCOREADO experience, how it has impacted his farming business and his hopes for the future of the project. To find out more about the project and the food system innovator toolkit, go to the COCOREADO website: https://cocoreado.eu 

We are back at the European Youth Centre in Budapest for our 2024 Study Session entitled ‘Rural Youth Work 101’.  In collaboration with the Council of Europe Youth Department, we brought together 35 participants from across our member organisations to exchange ideas, experiences and knowledge in relation to resilient rural youth work. Dan chats to the participants, prep team members, Course Director Martin Siemen and Eva Kotnik, member of the Advisory Council of Youth at the Council of Europe. 

We are at the final conference of the COCOREADO Project in Brussels which is an opportunity to present the results that the project has obtained over the last few years. In this episode, Dan chats to Project Coordinator Tessa Avermaete from KU Leuven, Mikelis Grivins from the Baltic Studies Centre, Marko Debeljak from the Jozef Stefan Instituteand Tomás da Cruz ... Read More

In this episode, Dan attends our policy workshop as part of the COCOREADO project. We have bought together policy makers from EU institutions as well as COCOREADO project partners and ambassadors, to discuss and highlight the work of COCOREADO, as well as unveil our new project policy brief: “Empowering young citizens involvement towards sustainable food systems”. Dan chats to Tomás da Cruz Machado, COCOREADO Project Manager, Ricard Ramon from DG Agri, Lisa Van Den Bossche from ILVO and Carlo Celis, a COCOREADO ambassador.   

Healthy youth workers - healthy youth. We are looking back at the 2023 Autumn Seminar hosted by Umbrella in Georgia. Dan chats to three members of the prep team - Doglas, Nikoloz and Anja - who take a look back at their highlights of the week, as well as the event’s theme of health as a human right. We also hear from participants from England, Slovenia, Wales, Austria, Norway and Northern Ireland. 

As 2023 comes to an end, we’re taking a look back over the past year and chatting to the winners of this year’s Rural Youth Europe Awards! Our annual awards aim to showcase the very best of our member organisations. In this episode, Dan chats to Linda, Roberts and Kitija from Latvian 4H who were involved in ‘Give Way to Youth’, which won this year’s ‘Project of the Year’. Dan also chats to Sian Healey from Pontfaen Young Farmers in Wales, this year’s ‘Inspirational Club of the Year’, as well as Ragnhild Eriksen from Norwegian Rural Youth who won this year’s ‘Inspirational Person of the Year’. 

Grow. Eat. Repeat. We are at the 2023 European Rally in Carinthia, Austria, for our biggest event of the year. Dan chats to the prep team and participants throughout the course of the week, which involves plenty of intercultural exchange, as well as sessions about the circular economy of food. We’re also joined by a couple of experts including Johanna Michenthaler who talks about meat consumption and Lydia Lienhart, an expert on food waste. Make sure you also take a look at Lydia’s YouTube (https://youtube.com/@lydiaexplains?si=9LdWIXfNR2lJJsc1) and Instagram (@lydiaexplains). 

In this episode Dan chats to Florian Lassnig and Daniela Hinteregger from Landjugend Österreich about this year’s European Rally in Austria. With just two weeks to go before the rally bell will be ringing, they discuss the importance of this year’s theme ‘Grow - Eat - Repeat’, what happened at this year’s Grand Prep meeting and give lots of advice to the participants on what to expect at this year’s rally! 

We are in Riga for the third COCOREADO ambassador training! This episode is co-hosted by the ambassadors and they talk about how they are ‘campaigning for change’ in the context of the COCOREADO project. Hear more about the ambassadors, what they’ve learnt from the training, the power of campaigning and the strength of the COCOREADO network. 

We’re kicking off Series 4 with all the action from our 2023 Study Session at the European Youth Centre in Budapest. In partnership with MIJARC Europe and the Council of Europe Youth Department, we brought together 36 participants from 17 organisations to investigate the resilience and sustainability of rural youth organisations, with a focus on mental health.  Dan chats to the participants and prep team, as well as Mette Ranta from the University of Helsinki to talk about her research surrounding mental health and Lukas Stede to speak about his role on the Advisory Council.

We’re in Ireland for the 2022 Autumn Seminar! Hosted by Macra na Feirme, the event is called ‘Creating an LGBT+ Positive Europe – Rural Out Loud’ and focuses on how to make our organisations more inclusive to the LGBT+ community. Dan chats to the participants, prep team and experts, including Tilly Taylor from the LGBTQ+ charity ShoutOut (www.shoutout.ie) and AGRI ... Read More

We are in Pamplona for the second COCOREADO ambassador training! In this episode, we focus on some of the seed initiatives that are being co-created by the ambassadors. They aim to rebalance the position of the farmer within the food supply chain and we learn how the ambassador network is helping to develop them further.  Dan chats to Anano Isakadze ... Read More

We’re in Germany for the European Rally 2022! It’s our first physical rally since 2019 and Dan is chatting to the participants, prep team and board members throughout the course of the week. Have you attended a Rural Youth Europe Rally before? If not, have a listen to find out what it’s all about, from the international buffet, to sessions and workshops on this year’s theme: dialogue and sustainability. 

This week Dan chats to Lauma Apine from Latvian 4H, who is on a mission to raise awareness of sexual health education within rural communities. This month, Scottish Young Farmers have also launched their ‘Jiggy with it June’ sexual health social media campaign. In the episode, Lauma talks about how we can start these sensitive conversations. So if you would like to replicate a similar campaign for your organisation, this is a great place to start! 

In our latest episode, we’re shining a light on a brilliant project from one of our member organisations. We are joined by John Keane, President of Macra na Feirme and co-founder of ’Make the Moove’ - a farmer-led mental health program. Dan chats to John about the motivations behind the project, putting together mental health toolkits and training ‘Farm Champions’ to deliver mental health workshops. 

Rural Youth Europe are proud partners in the COCOREADO project - a project that aims to reconnect producers and consumers to rebalance the farmer’s position in the food supply chain. Earlier this year, we invited 40 ambassadors from across Europe to Brussels for the first COCOREADO training event, which focussed on sharing good practices and how to initiate seed initiatives. Dan chats to several of the COCOREADO ambassadors about their ambitions for the project and what they’ve learnt so far.

We’re back with Series 3 and we’re kicking things off with our first in-person event since March 2020! At the end of April we were in Budapest for our joint study session with CEJA in cooperation with the Council of Europe:  Feed it Forward - Food as a Human Right. Dan chats to the prep team, participants and the experts throughout the course of the event and they discuss how we can make our food systems more sustainable. 

In this final episode of Series 2, the whole Rural Youth Europe Board are live in Dublin to play the latest game of Campfire Stories! We hear stories from Katie from Scotland, Anne from the Netherlands and Polona from Slovenia. We also hear all about what’s to come in 2022, with all the details for next year’s Rural Youth Europe events. 

It’s part 2 of our LGBTI inclusion episodes. Dan chats to Gethin Bickerton, a young farmer from Wales, to talk about his personal story, as well as projects with NFYFC and the DPJ foundation. He also catches up with MEP Maria Walsh, who discusses why she got into politics, as well as explains the LGBTI network that she helped to set up for Macra na Feirme. 

This episode is part 1 of 2 focussing on LGBTI inclusion in rural areas. Dan chats to MEP Kim Van Sparrentak about LGBTI rights in the EU, as well as Johan Gunnarsson from Swedish 4H, who shares his story of growing up in rural Sweden. 

Are you interested in becoming an ambassador for the COCOREADO project? We held a zoom drop-in session for anyone wanting to get involved in this project which is designed to rebalance the position of the farmer as a key player in food supply chains. Linzi Stewart interviews our Projects Manager John Gillon about what becoming a COCOREADO ambassador entails and how you can apply. 

In this episode we have a debrief on Rural Youth Europe’s first ever virtual rally. We hear from Anja Fortuna, this year’s rally Chair from ZSPM in Slovenia, and Dan also catches up with Mhairi Dalgleish, Team Scotland participant, and Linzi Stewart, Rural Youth Europe Chairman. They discuss the skills they’ve developed through being a member of their rural organisations, ... Read More

How has being a member of your rural organisation changed your life? In this episode Dan investigates the skills that we gain from being involved with our organisations. He catches up with Kristine Skudrite from Latvian 4H and Satu Järveläinen, past member of Finnish 4H and now a Communications Adviser for the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN in New York. Dan is also joined by Birgit Kuslap, Eastern Europe representative on the board to play this month’s ‘Campfire Stories’. 

What will rural areas look like for the next generation? This month, Dan talks to past Rural Youth Europe Chairman, Michael Schwab, and Swedish 4H leader, Isabelle Hal Wilkens, asking them what they think the future holds for rural communities. Rural Youth Europe Vice Chairman, Niall Evans, also takes part in the latest round of ‘Campfire Stories’. 

In the first episode of the second series, Dan is tackling the topic of Brexit and how it is affecting our members. Dan speaks to Jemima Brown, an NFYFC member whose family moved to France just before the Brexit deadline, and Alex Lyttle, vegetable farmer from Northern Ireland. We also have our new ‘Campfire Stories’ game, where we hear from three past Rural Youth Europe participants. This episode was produced with the support of the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. It does not necessarily reflect the official position of the Council of Europe.

This episode is the final one of Series 1 of Rural Voices Podcasts. In this episode, Dan is looking back on the series, reminiscing about the strange year that 2020 has been for us all and reflecting on some of the interviews heard in Series 1 episodes. Dan is joined by Sebastian Lassnig who has recently finished his term as Chairman ... Read More

What makes a sustainable community? In episode 7 of Rural Voices, Dan is joined by former RYE board member Nicolai Olsen to discuss the sustainability of our rural communities. We have interviews with cultural entrepreneur and journalist, Anne-Goaitske Breteler, as well as the Chairwomen of the Danish Eco Village Network, Pia Duus Jensen.

Episode 6 is all about LGBTQI+ Rights & Inclusion. Aris is joined by the newly elected special interests board member Siobhán Gallagher as they guide you through the episode featuring Dan's interview with Benjamin Firth, founder of AgRespect and Aris's interview with Lukas Stede from RYEurope member organisation BDL Germany. To close the episode Siobhán recaps the webinar "Commencing our Dialogue - LGBTI+ Positive Europe" which took place on November 2 and can be still viewed on Facebook now https://www.facebook.com/MacranaFeirme/videos/276105273733231/.

In episode 5 we are focusing on women in agriculture. Dan is joined by Daniela Allram, the Group 2 representative on the Rural Youth Europe board, and they discuss gender inequalities within the agricultural industry. We have interviews with Ruth Parkes, a Northern Irish farmer and agri-women blogger, and Doris Letina, Vice-President of CEJA.

In the fourth episode of Rural Voices we are tackling the topic of work as a social right. Dan talks to Anja Fortuna, the 2021 Slovenian Rally Chair, as well as Kandikó Rita from Fekete Sereg Nagyvázsony, a Hungarian rural youth organisation.We would have been studying this theme at our biggest event of the year, the Rural Youth Europe Rally, so in this episode we also celebrate past rallies by listening to some rally memories from past participants.

Rural Voices is back for the third episode to learn all about non-formal education and reflect on Rural Youth Europe's webinar "Ready, Scroll, Learn!". We share the highlights from the webinar delivered by Frederik Kaae Kirk and collaborated by Andreea Maris of the Swedish National Agency of Youth and Civil Society, as well as hear the learning outcomes and personal reflections from two of the webinar attendees - Emma Ilmonen and Barbara Sterkl.Check out the Non-Formal Learning webinar on our Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjce3v15ogs

In this episode we hear how rural youth organisations have created safe spaces for their members to participate during Covid lockdowns. Appearing in this episode are:Rachel Goldie - NFYFC Eirik Førde- Norway 4HZane Šteinberga, Patrīcija Prindule - Latvian 4-H We also hear Moninne Griffith from BelongTo, a LGBT+ organisation from Ireland, speak about what safe spaces are and how we can create them for young people in rural areas. To find out more about their work please visit: https://www.belongto.org

In the first ever Rural Voices podcast we learn all about Shrinking Civil Spaces in collaboration with the European Confederation of Youth Clubs at the study session hosted by the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg, France.  We hear experts Rares Craiu Secretary General European Confederation of Youth Clubs, Anna Rurka President of the Conference of INGOs, Leonie Martin Member Council of Europe Advisory Council on Youth and we also hear young people sharing their personal experiences of shrinking civil spaces.