SDGs for LOCAL development

Rita lives in a small town with 12,500 inhabitants. It is a small traditional village surrounded by two castles and crossed by a small river. It has three museums, two churches a primary school, a  secondary school, one important dairy company that produces the best cheese in the region and several small craft businesses in the area of tapestry. It is also home to an ancient medium-sized factory that still produces a typical and famous corn bread. The town is inhabited by young teenagers that frequently leave the village for good to go to university and old people that are attached to the rural adjacent areas of the town.

Rita is 32 years old and has decided to stay in the town and develop her community by working closely with the city hall. Together with some friends, she has created a charity that aims to promote the town she loves. Rita’s dreams of having more 30-45 year olds living and working in the town and surroundings and also of cultivating the relationship among younger and older people by helping older people remain active.

Rita’s belief is that older people are wise and have plenty of skills and knowledge about the land and life in general that should be valued and cultivated. Rita also recognises the big potential of her village with lots of history and heritage and a small industry that, if properly supported and developed, can provide considerable economic development and sustainability for her home town.

With the COVID ’19 pandemic, Rita’s charity applied for funds to develop some programmes that would benefit the village. While applying for funds, Rita realises that her town, although full of potential, has several structural problems that act as barriers to accomplishing several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) declared in 2020-2030 agenda adopted by United Nation Members.

Rita realises that the majority of inhabitants of her town only have primary or secondary school education and that this is related to a high level of unemployment in the village. Rita has also devoted some research to the small industries in the village: most of them are old in terms of organisation and infrastructure, with low skilled people working in most industries and a workforce of 50+ year olds that have never had adult training education. With the exclusion of the Tapestry industry, most workers are men, as women left school earlier in life to stay at home taking care of the family. One of the Rita’s funds contemplated a programme to give further qualifications to people over 50 + years and to familiarise the young generation with the traditions of the town.