The project was based on one of INPRO’s local initiatives called Open Cafe which has been successfully running in Rzeszow since 2016. It was initially created in response to the increasing number of immigrants moving to Rzeszow, Poland to study or work. Open Cafe is a social and open event that is based on non-formal methods of education. It is a space where every week people take part in a thematic workshop related to human rights, social issues, education or politics. During Open Cafe people meet, break stereotypes about each other and debate different issues. They also learn how to actively listen, be respectful and express their opinions in a clear manner. The success of this format in Rzeszow brought the coordinating organization to the conclusion that Open Cafe can be a universal method of social integration in many countries. That is why INPRO decided to promote Open Cafe and invite partner organizations to realize the concept in their cities and together they created this project. The project focused on realizing Open Cafe events in 4 cities across Europe: Rzeszow in Poland, Magenta in Italy, Malmo in Sweden and Patras in Greece. The direct participants of the project were young people representing partner organizations who took up the challenge of becoming the host of Open Cafe events in their local communities. The project also involved all together around 720 locals, those being the attendees of Open Cafe events. Within the project, we conducted three international training sessions to prepare hosts to organize Open Cafe. Also, the partner organizations developed the intellectual outputs: the digital manual “How to organize Open Cafe?” as well as series of video tutorials and project recaps promoting the format of Open Cafe among other organizations. The results were disseminated during one Multiplier Event as well as through an ongoing online dissemination campaign across Europe.

"The aim of the European Year of Cultural Heritage was to encourage more people to discover and engage with European cultural heritage and to reinforce the feeling of belonging to a common European space. The motto of the year was: ""Our heritage: where the past meets the future."" As the European Commission states, “cultural heritage influences our identity and our daily life. It is part of the towns and cities, natural landscapes and archaeological sites of Europe. It is not only found in literature, art and objects, but also in the crafts learned from our ancestors, the stories we tell our children, the food we enjoy in company, and the movies we watch and in which we we acknowledge ”. Our responsibility as citizens is to maintain and preserve our customs and our heritage so that subsequent generations can enjoy it and learn from it, therefore, the PROSOA RURAL project places special emphasis on transmitting to young people the need to know the environment in which you live , take care of it and keep alive the culture that our grandparents transmitted to us.The PROSOA RURAL project has had as its main objective to promote the promotion of social and civic competences in educational centers in rural areas to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit in young people focused on the generation of local development initiatives that meet the needs of the environment where they live, based on or inspiration, the conservation and promotion of Cultural Heritage and Traditions. On the one hand, promoting active participation in society among young people will help foster roots among young people and stop the population drain that causes the flight of young people from rural settings, (with the risk that this entails for disappearance). towns and therefore their cultural heritage). And on the other hand, the promotion of social entrepreneurship contributes to starting local development initiatives linked to cultural heritage and the environment where they live, even becoming possible entrepreneurial initiatives that end up in a business, which would promote the settlement in the municipalities rural areas, and therefore, the maintenance of the towns and their traditional customs.For this, the PROSOA RURAL project has developed educational materials that support educators in training centers in rural areas so that they can transmit these values ​​to young people. These materials have been compiled into a guide for educators where the main themes are the promotion of active participation and social entrepreneurship linked to the conservation of Cultural Heritage and Traditions at local, regional, national and European level. The Guide consists of two training modules, which include theoretical content that train trainers and that they can transmit to young people in rural areas, and 50 practical exercises so that trainers have useful and proven tools at their disposal that allow them to promote these skills among the youth population in rural areas. The Guide includes a compilation of Good Practices in the conservation and promotion of Cultural Heritage, which we consider as a source of inspiration for future initiatives.The materials have been tested by youth trainers and by the young people themselves in each of the participating countries, which has made it possible to adjust the contents to the real needs of the beneficiaries. In addition, a virtual conference was held in each of the countries to show the guide and the educational materials included in it, as well as the main results obtained from the piloting phase. These events have involved more than 200 people in Europe, which we hope will become a multiplier effect that allows the innovative materials of this project to be transmitted to a much larger number of educators and young people throughout Europe.We hope that these materials contribute to promoting youth entrepreneurship initiatives in European rural environments that generate new opportunities for growth and mitigate rural depopulation, helping to conserve European cultural heritage."