Rural Europe on the move English_chapt1_6 | Page 64

CHAPTER 5
Feeling European
but staying at home
Artur and I met whilst organising the
IN LOCO was founded by Alberto
Melo, professor for public law and
adult education and his wife Maria
Priscila Soares. Both were convinced
Forum Synergies ‘Agenda 2000 – IN that the only way to develop the very
LOCO’ event in 1998. It was the climax remote Sierra do Caldeirão would be
of the Sustainable Mystery Tour and to empower women, gather farmers,
linked the many places, projects and small enterprises and artisans from
people we had visited years before the Sierra starting with small products
and whom we had identified as and services, training and sharing
great examples of sustainable rural best practices, cooperatives, sharing
development. We gathered their limited facilities and developing
stories and strategies in a ‘travelling projects and programmes together.
exhibition’ which offered a background In three decades, the IN LOCO
for discussions and debates with rural association has been the incubator
people, politicians and media across of many strategies and events of
Europe. sustainable rural development in the
“We really felt honoured and
encouraged that the tour ended here,
their stories. It all sounded so familiar “Only the dream
that turns into action
becomes history.”
to us, even from far away rural places Alberto Melo
at IN LOCO’s territory. There were so
many new ideas and people telling
as the Baltic countries. Isn’t that the
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idea of Europe that we keep looking Algarve region. It has strengthened
for what we have in common? The citizen participation in these issues,
IN LOCO gathering at the end of the especially also integrating minority
Sustainable Mystery Tour was one of groups and people at risk of social
those moments where you can feel like exclusion. This fair of Tavira where
a European whilst staying at home,” he Artur and I sit in the shade is a symbol
adds. of continuity of this initiative.