Recorded at the Rural Youth Europe Study Session 2025, this episode focusses on rural advocacy. What is it? How do we engage with decision makers? What are the priorities of rural youth? Listen to young people from across Europe sharing their thoughts, as well as tips on how you can start your advocacy journey. This episode was recorded at the European Youth Centre in Budapest in collaboration with the Council of Europe Youth Department.
Jun 18, 2025•30 min•Season 6Ep. 1
In our final episode of 2024, Dan is joined by all the winners of this year’s Rural Youth Europe Awards, which aim to showcase the very best of rural youth across Europe. Hear from the team from Landjugend Schwoich who were responsible for this year’s Project of the Year - See Agriculture, Taste Agriculture, Experience Agriculture. Dan also chats to Teele Tõnisson from Estonian 4H, this year’s Inspirational Person of the Year, as well as Joanne Malone and Catriona Bourke, from Castlebar Macra, t...
Dec 20, 2024•37 min
Care to stay. Dare to change. We are at the 2024 European Rally in Voore, Estonia, hosted by Estonian 4H. Dan chats to the Estonian prep team and participants throughout the course of the week, which aims to develop our entrepreneurial mindsets. We also discuss the week’s theme with Kerli Ats, CEO of Estonian Farmers Federation and Katrīne Leitāne, member ... Read More
Aug 16, 2024•39 min
In this final COCOREADO special of Rural Voices, Dan chats to COCOREADO ambassador Peter Schön from Austria about his COCOREADO experience, how it has impacted his farming business and his hopes for the future of the project. To find out more about the project and the food system innovator toolkit, go to the COCOREADO website: https://cocoreado.eu
Jul 22, 2024•19 min
We are back at the European Youth Centre in Budapest for our 2024 Study Session entitled ‘Rural Youth Work 101’. In collaboration with the Council of Europe Youth Department, we brought together 35 participants from across our member organisations to exchange ideas, experiences and knowledge in relation to resilient rural youth work. Dan chats to the participants, prep team members, Course Director Martin Siemen and Eva Kotnik, member of the Advisory Council of Youth at the Council of Europe.
Jun 25, 2024•50 min
We are at the final conference of the COCOREADO Project in Brussels which is an opportunity to present the results that the project has obtained over the last few years. In this episode, Dan chats to Project Coordinator Tessa Avermaete from KU Leuven, Mikelis Grivins from the Baltic Studies Centre, Marko Debeljak from the Jozef Stefan Instituteand Tomás da Cruz ... Read More
Jun 07, 2024•30 min
In this episode, Dan attends our policy workshop as part of the COCOREADO project. We have bought together policy makers from EU institutions as well as COCOREADO project partners and ambassadors, to discuss and highlight the work of COCOREADO, as well as unveil our new project policy brief: “Empowering young citizens involvement towards sustainable food systems”. Dan chats to Tomás da Cruz Machado, COCOREADO Project Manager, Ricard Ramon from DG Agri, Lisa Van Den Bossche from ILVO and Carlo Ce...
Feb 15, 2024•28 min
Healthy youth workers - healthy youth. We are looking back at the 2023 Autumn Seminar hosted by Umbrella in Georgia. Dan chats to three members of the prep team - Doglas, Nikoloz and Anja - who take a look back at their highlights of the week, as well as the event’s theme of health as a human right. We also hear from participants from England, Slovenia, Wales, Austria, Norway and Northern Ireland.
Jan 12, 2024•20 min
As 2023 comes to an end, we’re taking a look back over the past year and chatting to the winners of this year’s Rural Youth Europe Awards! Our annual awards aim to showcase the very best of our member organisations. In this episode, Dan chats to Linda, Roberts and Kitija from Latvian 4H who were involved in ‘Give Way to Youth’, which won this year’s ‘Project of the Year’. Dan also chats to Sian Healey from Pontfaen Young Farmers in Wales, this year’s ‘Inspirational Club of the Year’, as well as ...
Dec 18, 2023•35 min
Grow. Eat. Repeat. We are at the 2023 European Rally in Carinthia, Austria, for our biggest event of the year. Dan chats to the prep team and participants throughout the course of the week, which involves plenty of intercultural exchange, as well as sessions about the circular economy of food. We’re also joined by a couple of experts including Johanna Michenthaler who talks about meat consumption and Lydia Lienhart, an expert on food waste. Make sure you also take a look at Lydia’s YouTube (http...
Sep 08, 2023•53 min
In this episode Dan chats to Florian Lassnig and Daniela Hinteregger from Landjugend Österreich about this year’s European Rally in Austria. With just two weeks to go before the rally bell will be ringing, they discuss the importance of this year’s theme ‘Grow - Eat - Repeat’, what happened at this year’s Grand Prep meeting and give lots of advice to the participants on what to expect at this year’s rally!
Jul 18, 2023•19 min
We are in Riga for the third COCOREADO ambassador training! This episode is co-hosted by the ambassadors and they talk about how they are ‘campaigning for change’ in the context of the COCOREADO project. Hear more about the ambassadors, what they’ve learnt from the training, the power of campaigning and the strength of the COCOREADO network.
Jun 15, 2023•28 min
We’re kicking off Series 4 with all the action from our 2023 Study Session at the European Youth Centre in Budapest. In partnership with MIJARC Europe and the Council of Europe Youth Department, we brought together 36 participants from 17 organisations to investigate the resilience and sustainability of rural youth organisations, with a focus on mental health. Dan chats to the participants and prep team, as well as Mette Ranta from the University of Helsinki to talk about her research surroundin...
May 05, 2023•44 min
We’re in Ireland for the 2022 Autumn Seminar! Hosted by Macra na Feirme, the event is called ‘Creating an LGBT+ Positive Europe – Rural Out Loud’ and focuses on how to make our organisations more inclusive to the LGBT+ community. Dan chats to the participants, prep team and experts, including Tilly Taylor from the LGBTQ+ charity ShoutOut (www.shoutout.ie) and AGRI ... Read More
Dec 16, 2022•44 min
We are in Pamplona for the second COCOREADO ambassador training! In this episode, we focus on some of the seed initiatives that are being co-created by the ambassadors. They aim to rebalance the position of the farmer within the food supply chain and we learn how the ambassador network is helping to develop them further. Dan chats to Anano Isakadze ... Read More
Nov 01, 2022•55 min
We’re in Germany for the European Rally 2022! It’s our first physical rally since 2019 and Dan is chatting to the participants, prep team and board members throughout the course of the week. Have you attended a Rural Youth Europe Rally before? If not, have a listen to find out what it’s all about, from the international buffet, to sessions and workshops on this year’s theme: dialogue and sustainability.
Sep 20, 2022•54 min
This week Dan chats to Lauma Apine from Latvian 4H, who is on a mission to raise awareness of sexual health education within rural communities. This month, Scottish Young Farmers have also launched their ‘Jiggy with it June’ sexual health social media campaign. In the episode, Lauma talks about how we can start these sensitive conversations. So if you would like to replicate a similar campaign for your organisation, this is a great place to start!
Jun 29, 2022•20 min
In our latest episode, we’re shining a light on a brilliant project from one of our member organisations. We are joined by John Keane, President of Macra na Feirme and co-founder of ’Make the Moove’ - a farmer-led mental health program. Dan chats to John about the motivations behind the project, putting together mental health toolkits and training ‘Farm Champions’ to deliver mental health workshops.
Jun 22, 2022•27 min
Rural Youth Europe are proud partners in the COCOREADO project - a project that aims to reconnect producers and consumers to rebalance the farmer’s position in the food supply chain. Earlier this year, we invited 40 ambassadors from across Europe to Brussels for the first COCOREADO training event, which focussed on sharing good practices and how to initiate seed initiatives. Dan chats to several of the COCOREADO ambassadors about their ambitions for the project and what they’ve learnt so far.
Jun 08, 2022•50 min
We’re back with Series 3 and we’re kicking things off with our first in-person event since March 2020! At the end of April we were in Budapest for our joint study session with CEJA in cooperation with the Council of Europe: Feed it Forward - Food as a Human Right. Dan chats to the prep team, participants and the experts throughout the course of the event and they discuss how we can make our food systems more sustainable.
May 16, 2022•40 min
In this final episode of Series 2, the whole Rural Youth Europe Board are live in Dublin to play the latest game of Campfire Stories! We hear stories from Katie from Scotland, Anne from the Netherlands and Polona from Slovenia. We also hear all about what’s to come in 2022, with all the details for next year’s Rural Youth Europe events.
Dec 20, 2021•24 min
It’s part 2 of our LGBTI inclusion episodes. Dan chats to Gethin Bickerton, a young farmer from Wales, to talk about his personal story, as well as projects with NFYFC and the DPJ foundation. He also catches up with MEP Maria Walsh, who discusses why she got into politics, as well as explains the LGBTI network that she helped to set up for Macra na Feirme.
Dec 16, 2021•42 min
This episode is part 1 of 2 focussing on LGBTI inclusion in rural areas. Dan chats to MEP Kim Van Sparrentak about LGBTI rights in the EU, as well as Johan Gunnarsson from Swedish 4H, who shares his story of growing up in rural Sweden.
Dec 10, 2021•41 min
Are you interested in becoming an ambassador for the COCOREADO project? We held a zoom drop-in session for anyone wanting to get involved in this project which is designed to rebalance the position of the farmer as a key player in food supply chains. Linzi Stewart interviews our Projects Manager John Gillon about what becoming a COCOREADO ambassador entails and how you can apply.
Oct 20, 2021•27 min
In this episode we have a debrief on Rural Youth Europe’s first ever virtual rally. We hear from Anja Fortuna, this year’s rally Chair from ZSPM in Slovenia, and Dan also catches up with Mhairi Dalgleish, Team Scotland participant, and Linzi Stewart, Rural Youth Europe Chairman. They discuss the skills they’ve developed through being a member of their rural organisations, ... Read More
Oct 01, 2021•38 min
How has being a member of your rural organisation changed your life? In this episode Dan investigates the skills that we gain from being involved with our organisations. He catches up with Kristine Skudrite from Latvian 4H and Satu Järveläinen, past member of Finnish 4H and now a Communications Adviser for the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN in New York. Dan is also joined by Birgit Kuslap, Eastern Europe representative on the board to play this month’s ‘Campfire Stories’.
Jul 28, 2021•36 min
What will rural areas look like for the next generation? This month, Dan talks to past Rural Youth Europe Chairman, Michael Schwab, and Swedish 4H leader, Isabelle Hal Wilkens, asking them what they think the future holds for rural communities. Rural Youth Europe Vice Chairman, Niall Evans, also takes part in the latest round of ‘Campfire Stories’.
Jun 02, 2021•35 min
In the first episode of the second series, Dan is tackling the topic of Brexit and how it is affecting our members. Dan speaks to Jemima Brown, an NFYFC member whose family moved to France just before the Brexit deadline, and Alex Lyttle, vegetable farmer from Northern Ireland. We also have our new ‘Campfire Stories’ game, where we hear from three past Rural Youth Europe participants. This episode was produced with the support of the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. It does no...
May 03, 2021•34 min
This episode is the final one of Series 1 of Rural Voices Podcasts. In this episode, Dan is looking back on the series, reminiscing about the strange year that 2020 has been for us all and reflecting on some of the interviews heard in Series 1 episodes. Dan is joined by Sebastian Lassnig who has recently finished his term as Chairman ... Read More
Feb 08, 2021•33 min
What makes a sustainable community? In episode 7 of Rural Voices, Dan is joined by former RYE board member Nicolai Olsen to discuss the sustainability of our rural communities. We have interviews with cultural entrepreneur and journalist, Anne-Goaitske Breteler, as well as the Chairwomen of the Danish Eco Village Network, Pia Duus Jensen.
Jan 19, 2021•38 min
