Bringing people together

Creating opportunities for people to get together is a big part of our Rural Wisdom project. We do this in a variety of ways – some are very local; others are on a bigger scale. In May we hosted our latest ‘Rural Wisdom Scottish Gathering’. These events create the time and space for those who are living and working in the Rural Wisdom areas to come together; share what they’ve been doing, offer support and advice, come up with new ideas and strengthen their rural communities.

We had people travel from all five Scottish Rural Wisdom areas; Eaglesham and Waterfoot, Highland Perthshire, North Angus, Moray and the Borders to attend out Gathering in the Bankfoot Church Centre in Perthshire.

“It’s important to take these events out to rural communities, to be in the communities where people live and work. At the start of the project we heard that most of the networking events happen in places such as Perth, Glasgow or Edinburgh which can create extra challenges and often means that older people from rural communities are not equally represented at events.” Rural Wisdom Development Worker

Sharing advice and support

 

We spent time talking about what life is like in rural communities and what people are doing to make their communities work better for older people and others. We had some conversations around important issues such as; transport, access to services and how community activities and relationships help create supportive, welcoming communities.

“It’s great to hear what other folk are doing, it’s good to know it’s not just your community that’s struggling with something – I had a great chat with someone from a community transport group. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, I’m glad I came along.” Representative from Eaglesham and Waterfoot.

We were delighted that our project funder The National Lottery Community Fund were able to join us to take part in the conversations and hold a funding advice drop-in. We hope this is something that we’ll be able to bring to future Gatherings and continue building connections for rural communities across different sectors.

Taking the time to celebrate

After two years we are now nearing the end of the first phase of the project. We took the time to reflect on what we had learned and celebrated all that was achieved individually and collectively; social activities, information sessions, learning exchanges, contributions to Scottish Government policy and exciting new spin-off projects…it’s been a busy two years.

Keep on Gathering!

We’re keen to continue supporting people to come together so we’ll keep on hosting our Gatherings as the project progresses. If you would like to host your own get-together or gathering, we would be happy to offer our support to make that happen.

We would like to Thank everyone who contributed to the Gathering.

For more information

Visit our website: ruralwisdom.org
Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/RuralWisdom
Sign-Up to our email list here: Email Sign-up

If you would like to keep in touch with us or speak to us about hosting an event, please contact us on: hello@ruralwisdom.org / 01350 729130.