The research agenda on the participation of rural youth in democratic life and their active engagement in society is vast. Based on the latest EU reports on youth political participation, almost 3 to 10 declared that they are motivated or interested in participating in commons. Those data also indicate that there is the need of the engagement of youth organisations and relevant stakeholders coming from with different levels of rural transformation, thus informing new interventions with highly contextualized measures.

The changes lying ahead in rural areas, in particular in Mediterranean countries, will have a fundamental impact on the opportunities available to young people continuing to live in the countryside. Society must provide the resources necessary to enable young people in rural areas to take responsibility for their own future and actively participate in democratic life.

The RYTA partnership consists of organizations with know-how and extensive experience to successfully implement the project. The consortium forms a network for “encouraging the participation of rural young people in democratic life in Europe” through the design and implementation of non-formal training and mobility activities. All partners come from the wider Mediterranean region (Greece, Italy, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon) and will cooperate to produce high quality results.

During the lifetime of the project, all partners will jointly develop:
-Extensive Research about the rural youth inclusion and participation through needs and challenges identification
-An Online platform for policy advocacy and youth networking
-the RYTA Training course toolkit and Train the Trainers’ toolkit
RYTA project will fulfil the following results:
-Capacity-Building Opportunities of youth organizations and their staff and promotion of youth engagement and inclusion in democratic life
-Bring together rural youth and decision makers to encourage youth to participate in the political cycle of rural areas -Raise awareness on environmental policies and sustainability, encouraging rural youth to actively participate in democratic life and policy development and advocacy
-Rural youth will develop or increase their skills and enhance their employability
-Increase inclusiveness, solidarity, and transnational cooperation
-Rural youth will get to know better the EU, develop & increase their skills & knowledge, by participating in National Trainings & transnational mobility
-Ensure that rural youth will stay connected under all circumstances, through the development of a digital platform -Promote distance learning and digitalization of educational processes