Rural Parliament 2017

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Rural Parliament was held for the first time as national event in 2017. It answered a need to increase awareness of Finland's diverse rural areas, raise important rural viewpoints to public discussion and political agendas and inspire constructive rural- and urban areas discussion.

From impossibilities to possibilities - Rural Parliament 2017

The first national Rural Parliament of Finland was held 1-3. September 2017 in Leppävirta, Northern Savo. The event was a part of the Finland 100 -anniversary programme. In the event the current and future critical rural matters were fearlessly addressed and raised to national politics agendas, amazing success stories were demonstrated and encouraged to propagate and discussion channels between rural actors, policy makers and media were developed.

Read the Rural Parliament 2017 programme here (external link).

We wanted to bring together rural actors from all over Finland and create possibilities for knowledge exchange, new networking and resourceful actions in the rural areas.

Over 800 people from all over Finland took part in the programme and over 2000 people visited the event. In the Rural Parliament 2017 there were 16 main speakers and panelists, and 15 excursions and 34 workshops in the programme. There were 10 performer groups in the harvest market's programme.

A big thank you for the arranging of the event goes to the 120 volunteer workers from Leppävirta and the 43 programme content's partners, organizations and companies from Leppävirta, Northern Savo and all of Finland.

Engaging and creating a common will for the rural areas of Finland has been an important part of Rural Parliament. In Leppävirta the first rural policy declaration, "Mahdollistetaan menestyvä maaseutu" was revealed.

The message of the declaration has been transported to national policy makers and through the European Rural Parliament to the Members of the European Parliament (MP's) through rural policy work.

Read "Mahdollistetaan menestyvä maaseutu" in pdf-format through this link.