as simple as that work is. As difficult as that work is. The unpopulated regions claim to employment opportunities for those that still live in them, not to go away and for those who are tired of the city are attracted by the rural environment. “It is the history of the universe. People move to wherever it can earn the life”, summarizes Juanjo Manzano, head of communication and development of AlmaNatura, a social enterprise that leads the reactivation of the rural since 1997. Three-quarters of the municipalities of Castilla and León, Asturias, Extremadura, Aragon, Galicia and Castilla-La Mancha have lost population in the last two decades, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
Amen of the administrations, the task of curbing the depopulation is the spread between associations of national scope as Coceder (Confederation of Centres for Rural Development), which has driven banks homes and land to provide housing and plots of land to new settlers, and that manages centres of employment and training, and caters to seniors. Entities such as the above-mentioned AlmaNatura, who has created the web holapueblo.com to appeal to both farmers as to computer programmers and acts as the catalyst between the administration and workers with new ideas. And regional platforms, such as Jaén Deserves More, that come out to the street and applying for state funds, and in europe in order to increase the productive fabric. That is, you work.
From AlmaNatura, Juanjo Manzano plans to convert a mill of oil of Arroyomolinos de León, a town in the interior of Huelva of 965 inhabitants (1.620 half a century ago, according to the INE), in a center of own-account workers with a digital profile and local entrepreneurs. It may seem a occurrence. But if you scratch has substance. This superior technician in Environmental Health associate him more with the role of the house of culture or a civic center that a coworking. “People no longer go to mass. Many do not go to the bar because they don’t like the alcohol. And what about the Councils? There will only people to complain. Missing sites of coexistence”, concludes on the phone from a ravine in Arroyomolinos, the town that refused to leave, and where is the headquarters of the entity. The population of the municipalities of less than 1,000 inhabitants has fallen by 8.9% in the last 20 years.
Juan Manuel Polentinos is the manager of Coceder since 2000. Attends from a landline phone in Valladolid, the seat of this association born in 1990 and which has a presence in nine Autonomous Communities. The analogy he uses to explain the differences in the unpopulated regions with the rest of the country is the following: “we all charge the taxes on the same day. But at the time of deal not touches us all alike.” Coceder put in circulation in the homes of rural settings in exchange for a low rent or for assignment to the new inhabitants, has a land bank to reactivate vacant land and has a bank of business. Polentinos clarifies with air calmed, the latter by means of an example. “A family of Murcia has moved to a village of Zaragoza, to take charge of a farm that was going to be unusable”. The 77,81% of the municipalities of Aragon, has lost population in the last two decades. The 11,11% in the Region of Murcia.
How to set population
just as important as attracting residents is to retain it. The first idea that states Polentinos and gloss performance of Coceder is “to fight for that not to dismantle public services.” The association has established schools for children, centers of employment for workers with functional diversity or spaces training and advice on gender violence. Accumulate 10,000 hours of courses which are recognised by the employment services. Coceder, that arises from an organization for the preservation of rural schools, points out the importance of education. “There have been groups of social guarantee for kids who leave the school before time that have been deleted for not meeting a minimum number of students. This can not be. Punish a part of the population”, explains this degree in Psychology, and born in Melgar de Abajo (Valladolid).
Next to the conversion of the mill or the transformation of an old cinema, AlmaNatura plans to enable for the summer that comes at a residence in Arroyomolinos de León in which they live, and eat about twenty of the new settlers. “The visitor centres are very good but you can also fill out the sites of people of another way,” says Manzano.
This social enterprise, which has seven workers in Arroyomolinos and 15 spread across Spain, is determined to create a community made up of locals and people from outside. Hybridization, described. This is to bring small local merchants with inhabitants from the city. Manzano points out the importance of the administrations to be involved because it gives credibility to the projects. “We are not idealists, we need. We have to attract talent,” says this huelva 42-year-old, who defends these centres of remote work as a way to combat presenteeism in the workplace (heat the chair, in vulgar language), to improve the productivity of the workers and ending with meetings to be unsuccessful.
The women lead the change
Coceder has been integrated along with other variegated associations in the project Look Rural, to fight against the depopulation, with the sustainability between eyebrow and eyebrow. The one that passes by to cultivate organic products and improving the conditions of women. One of these entities is the Association of Relatives of Alzheimer’s Bierzo (AFA), which operates in 17 cities in the west of León. Organize training workshops and attend major home. Contact with the sons or nephews of these, who live in the city, to be peaceful and know that they are cared for. “To the seniors they can’t get out of their houses. Are places that have built themselves. If the relocate lost the roots and the illusion. Are alienated. They catered to death”, explains Ana Pilar Rodriguez, director of AFA in a recess of a workshop of the association of Friends of the Bees.
local consumption grows
Juanjo Manzano, a senior technician in Environmental Health of Alma Natura, points to the importance of reviving the local consumption. What some restaurants in large cities advertised as cuisine, zero kilometer, in a village is not more to buy the tomatoes at a farmer of the area. “Something very different than when people come to spend the weekend at a rural house and brings all the food outside of a supermarket. They believe that the village will get more expensive”, is critical. “Another thing very different is the sustainable tourism. Get out of that house, to go to the store, buy, speak with the people. So it makes life of the people.”
The association presenta initiatives to the Councils of the municipalities and when they receive the endowment and hire technicians and professionals to perform their tasks. In collaboration with the UNED, which has a chair of local development and sustainable, they will give to their projects from a gender perspective. “The work of carers or assistants of clinics are dominated by female workers,” says this psychologist of 57 years. AFA will train women in equality through language and actions and they are going to give you the tools to form cooperatives and to integrate into the world of work in an independent manner. The women of the area, from traditional associations of housewives and well-settled, will be the first, but rely on attracting new settlers. Juanjo Manzano, AlmaNatura, points to the need of empowering the women in the rural world. “It’s key, brings together all. If the woman leaves, the whole family is going”, he argues.
After work, leisure activities
Apple claims that once that is fixed the work and have children, the citizens want to go to the theater, to be entertained, to have a cultural offer. The platform SOS Heritage Cuenca points in this direction. Struggle to preserve the heritage of the province of Cuenca. Is more, to rehabilitate some of the monuments or roman villas and convert the process of conditioning in a theme park that attracts visitors. “It offers a cultural richness to the inhabitants of the towns and generates cultural tourism, much less seasonal, and sustainable than the sun and the beach,” says Fidel García-Berlanga, member of the board of SOS Heritage Cuenca. “Our role as an association is motivating and stimulating. We give the watch to the Administration,” corroborates the role in more claimant of the regional platforms.
Others who raise their voice are the Countrymen of Sancho, an association of the Campo de Montiel (Ciudad Real and Albacete). Javier Doménech form part of this platform. Refers to the agricultural purposes of the area (“the Spain that produces food and cares for the environment”) and calls for a stop to the depopulation “from the root, from the base, from our mountains. And not so much with brilliant ideas like the 5G or the coworking”, satirizes this manager of a rural hotel at Villanueva de los Infantes (Ciudad Real).
This platform of la mancha and other 22 more rallied on the 31st of march in Madrid in the area known as the revolt of Spain Emptied: 100.000 protestants gathered in the capital, according to the organizers (Teruel Exists, and Soria Now!) as many as the number of inhabitants is expected to lose the province of Jaén in the next 20 years if nothing changes in the demographic evolution current.
The contribution of Coca-Cola
A large part of the young people leave the villages in Spain emptied for study and in most cases does not return. For this reason, companies such as Coca-Cola invest in Spain by supplementing their training to meet their entry into the labour market with confidence.
With the aim of planting the seed of entrepreneurship among the young people of rural Spain, Coca-Cola has launched the project REVOLVES Young people ‘driving the Change’ in collaboration with the social enterprise, rural development AlmaNatura. The training course focused on those young people who, due to the lack of services and educational opportunities, work and cultural, leave their villages and settle in cities. Coca-Cola contributes to that the territory will not jeopardise the opportunities of training and labour insertion. The program is aimed at young people between 16 and 23 years who are pursuing the first year of a middle or higher Vocational Training.
TURN Young people ‘Build-your-passion’ is still working, along with a dozen corporate entities, in the employment of boys and girls in a situation of special difficulty. Thanks to this initiative, 89% of participants improved their employability, 76% have returned to study, and 27% have found work. Some very positive results that would not have been possible without the collaborating social organisations in TURN Young people that get that initial disorientation of vocations and the lack of training and work experience that characterizes these young people, arising out of, green shoots .
Chronic future
A podcast of fiction to imagine the best of the porvenires
A family nature lover looking for a sustainable business that can be undertaken, but not found the perfect idea. The mother receives the news: a distant relative has just died and he has left a legacy of a land. The farm hides a little secret: old boxes full of empty plastic bottles. You will discover that that distant relative was more bold than imagined: the bottles are broken down in the form of seed in contact with the earth, the water and the sun, and from them are born plants. The sustainable business ideal.
A small village of what became known as the Spain emptied, recovered in 2025, is in a critical situation due to a drought that is gripping large parts of the country. The government decides to authorize the flight of The sower, a plane that creates storms artificial, but no one knows whether it will rain enough. A company dedicated to the production of newater, reclaimed water, decides to take the initiative before it’s too late and prepares a tanker truck to bring it to the people. Half way, will be trapped next to the two conductors in a hollow… what Will arrive?
Alba, the protagonist of the first chapter of this series of podcasts, just turned 101 years old and is full of energy, thanks to the great advancements in nanomedicine and cellular engineering. He has had a long and exciting life dedicated to the preservation of the seas and oceans, their vocation. After studying the seas extinct of Mars, where it thrives the first colony human, returns to Earth to retire in a coastal town. There peregrinarán hundreds of women entrepreneurs who seek their advice and inspiration to continue protecting and improving the future.
