From the 5th till the 9th of September a one week course and research group is taking place in Nughedu Santa Vittoria, a rural community in the centre of Sardinia . This initiative organised in partnership with local authorities and the Sardinian government includes lectures, seminars and discussions on the ever increasing problematic of ‘desertification’ of remote villages in the inland in Sardinia. As part of the application process the organisers asked me to write about what pushed me to sign up for the course and my answer was: a will to learn and contribute to the discussion to find good ideas which could be, one day, put into practice.
The problem lies in the fact that communities are getting torn apart from the high levels of unemployment, lack of opportunities and future for the fact that many young people are leaving the villages to move to bigger cities in the island or go to the mainland or in other parts of Europe or the world. If one looks at the number of people who identify themselves as Sardinian I would guess almost half of them are not living in Sardinia. There has been a massive diaspora not due to war or persecution but due to another deadly factor: hunger. This does not merely mean hunger as in food deprivation as our land is fertile and we can be self-sufficient in terms of food production it is mainly hunger for opportunities, not living on the bread line and also getting in contact with the world which is portrayed via the internet and television. This phenomena is not necessarily a bad thing but there is the need, for the sake of preserving part of our identity, to strengthen these rural communities.
Details of this plan are further explained in the linked numbers or articles. Click on one of the five titles to read more about the specific idea to fight desertification of rural communities.
If you are interested in the topic share the links and drop a comment, having a debate and exchanging ideas in the hope that some concrete action takes place in order to reduce or maybe even reverse this phenomena.
Follow the latest updates on Lost in a Cup’s Instagram
#GhostSardinia #CampusOmodeo