02 Oct FUNDECYT’s new online course on agroecology and agroecological farming

As part of the efforts done by FUNDECYT-PCTEX working in the RAISE Youth project to provide free, good-quality and impactful training to people in Extremadura, the team of the RAISE Youth project has launched a new training in agroecology and agroecological farming. This new MOOC training is available in FUNDECYT-PCTEX’s own digital training platform, CAPACYT, aims to give rural youth the basis needed to start any type of agroecological activity, covering from the very definition of what is agroecology and agroecological farming to the steeps needed to plan and successfully implement our own agroecological design in our territories.

This online course marks the end of the activities done during the last few months under the framework of the RAISE Youth AGRO. With the help of Asociación Paisaje, Ecología y Género (Landscape, Ecology and Gender Asocciation by its translation in Spanish), the team of FUNDECYT-PCTEX was able to work rural youth that was receiving formal training on agroecology and farming and gave them additional training social innovation and entrepreneurship, aiming to encourage them to apply their knowledge in agroecology and sustainability in future entrepreneurial activities that will reinforce the social fabric of their territories and combat brain drain in rural areas in Extremadura.

In parallel to this new course, Asociación Paisaje, Ecología y Género has launched a complementary activity called Terraforming ODS. This activity, available in their online repository “La Agreoecoteca”, follows a gamified approach and aim to engage young people involved in the agro and primary sector to become “terraformers”, agents of change that will transform their territories following an agroecological approach, form teams and trying to come up with solutions to different environmental and social challenges present their territories.

By combining this formal training with a practical and gamified approach, the team of FUNDECY-PCTEX expect to create some sort of momentum among rural youth and training institutions related to the agro sector, encouraging the creation of collaborative networks between institutions and youth and establishing a new way of working in the primary sector that combines social innovation, formal training and actual work in the territories to better tackles the challenges that rural areas are facing in Extremadura.