Somerset Rural Renaissance | Projects

Rural Regeneration - Supporting the Economy of Somerset

PROJECT SUMMARY

The rurality.com project will widen the participation of under-skilled or unemployed young people in rural areas by assisting them to access career-enhancing training and employment opportunities offered by partner organisations.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Background
Somerset Rural Youth Project has piloted a number of projects and programmes using ICT with young people in rural areas. Young people have also been engaged in the design and maintenance of the SRYP website. Following these pilot projects SRYP received funding from the Somerset Rural Renaissance Programme to develop the organisation’s Information & Advice capacity by using existing resources and new technologies.

Aims
rurality.com project provides Information & Advice for young people living in the rural parishes of Somerset. It will encourage and support them in finding and keeping employment, education and training opportunities in partnership with the REAL project (Rural Employment And Learning). It will stimulate economic activity and support young people in their personal and social development.

How it works
The rurality.com project is a brokerage scheme that develops new and innovative ways for rural young people to gain access to the information, advice and support they need, for example:

All young people living in rural areas with access to the Internet can use the website as a gateway to sources of information

Further advice and support is provided by the REAL team having accessed basic information through the website

The website is designed and maintained by young people in rural Somerset so the information is relevant

Young people are able to access information and advice by using the organisation’s ICT resources in small locality groups

Resources include laptop computers, with Internet access, digital audio visual equipment and converted minibus

The project has piloted the development of a mobile phone texting service

Success
The collaborative work of rurality.com and REAL teams has been extremely effective, using mobile internet and other IT to search the internet and print out CV’s whilst increasing skills and confidence. Having the information and links on our website has been useful to young people generally but making contact and providing support where young people need it has been life changing.

One young man said, “I think it has given me a good chance to access employment opportunities with the computers and wireless internet. It’s really cool ‘cos I can’t get that sort of thing out here and I haven’t got it myself.”

Converting an existing fleet minibus into a flexible environment for young people to use IT and paper resources and information has proved to be a productive development for flexible delivery to young people and an inspiration to other projects to make better use of mobile provisions.

The project has been a catalyst for the development of other websites managed by young people through the use of free technologies and skills learnt through the project.

Participation
Somerset Rural Youth Project is committed to young people’s involvement in the development of the organisation. Rurality.com has been, and will continue to be, developed by young people.

The project will continue to increase opportunities for young people to directly influence decisions made by Somerset Rural Youth Project.

Get involved
Somerset Rural Youth Project Logo Young people can go to www.ruralpeoplerus.info and

Register themselves on the site to start talking with other young people and the team
Start adding their own pages with initial support from youth workers available
Use the ‘Contact us’ page on web site for any information or support needed
Use the Mobile text blog or forum for easy ways to have a say and get involved

A full evaluation of the project was undertaken by external consultants during early 2008. For more information please contact the project directly through the contacts on their website.