Rural Europe on the move English_E_version_all | Page 15

The average age of the 10 of us around the table is 45. In EU terms that is the limit to be considered as a young farmer and to qualify for special juvenile support. Helene Schulze is our youngest. Tonight is her birthday. She will be 24 - the same age as Forum Synergies - a happy coincidence indeed. She should be our team leader because her future is the longest. Born in London to German parents, Helene studied geography and environmental governance, directs the London Freedom Seed Bank, is engaged in food justice and works as a writer on food, farming and rural development, particularly at ARC2020. Helene draws our story to a close in chapter 13. Travelling is also Philippe Barret’s passion. In fact, he is a nomad of our time from the beginning as he spent half of his childhood in North Africa. His grandmother is from Napoli, his father from Provence in southern France, where in 1983 he founded GEYSER, an organisation for sustainable development of rural areas. Apart from travelling through France, Europe and the wider world, he always has a curious eye on farmers’ ecological knowledge and dreams. From time to time he withdraws for ‘randonnées’, walks through wild nature with just enough to eat and drink. In his professional life he is environmental mediator. We will hear from Philippe in chapter 8. Together with Philippe, Hannes Lorenzen is co-founder of Forum Synergies. His roots are almost on the other extreme, in the far North of Europe, on the North Frisian island of Pellworm, where he founded and leads an association for sustainable island development. He served 35 years as a civil servant in the European Parliament in Brussels. Besides his work inside European institutions, he has founded and animated local, European and international civil society movements. As a reward for this he received a sculpture called ‘Crazy Dancer’. The artist of the sculpture is revealed at the end of this chapter. 3. Helene Schultze 4. Philippe Barret 5. Hannes Lorenzen Read more about Pellworm island and European networking in chapter 9. 11