UOC Rural Award-winning projects

This Final Degree Project focuses on the creation of an audiovisual documentary through which we want to convey an important message to the viewer about the reality of traditional trade in small towns in the emptied Spain. The documentary will give visibility to the customs that are still maintained despite the passing of the years and the globalization. This is a creative project where different disciplines of the audiovisual world will be reflected.

The following document is a report that includes the entire process that has been followed for the creation of the documentary. A process that began with just an idea and has since then become a personal and family project that aims to show and give voice to a world of rural traditions.

This documentary is suitable for all audiences and aimed at those people interested in the evolution of traditional forms of commerce and in the rural customs of our country.

The project evolves around the creation of a documentary based on a family that has been been making bread for more than 80 years and whose aim is to show that old customs are still alive in our society. It is a work that highlights the speculation carried out by large companies in the trade sector, but also the effort and pride that its people feel in maintaining these practically forgotten forms of commerce. At the same time, this project also allows us to show the rural and traditional values ​​of our villages. Thus, the purpose of the documentary goes beyond the images and helps to spread a message of resistance of rural customs and to promote this type of business. Therefore, the documentary will have a social relevance that be used to measure the importance of customs and traditions that are gradually being destroyed by globalization. In the same way, it will serve to highlight and compare how society conceives commerce and its way of consumption.

For some years now, the Catalan rural area has been undergoing a process of depopulation with a high rate of population aging due in part to the rural-urban exodus. This dynamic has been contrasted with the reality of young people who, after the crisis of the Covid-19, have decided to return to the villages attracted by a model of life opposed to the frenetic pace of life present in the cities. On the other hand, many young people who arrive in Catalonia have migrated alone and, once they reach the age of majority, find themselves in a highly vulnerable situation. Many of them reside in large cities because it is where there is a greater concentration of resources and services to support them and also because they find similar groups of people to relate to. However, this urban model also leads these people, who in many cases have no sufficient academic qualifications, to live in marginal neighborhoods where housing is more affordable and to work in truly precarious jobs.

In this paper I want to reflect about how Social Education and its praxis can constitute a dynamic element that opens doors to young people who have migrated alone as minors to small communities in the rural world – towns with less than 2,000 inhabitants -, contributing to achieve integral support models where the community network can provide them with housing and work opportunities, thus becoming agents that help to stop rural depopulation throughout the territory.

The purpose of the following work is to design a strategic communication plan for the “Oficina Jove de la Terra Alta” with the aim of becoming another tool in the fight against rural depopulation.

The region heads the podium in the list of this demographic regression that is subtracting the country’s rural areas, and has seen its population halved over the last century. Starting from the drastic scenario, the present plan groups and combines, in communicative terms, the working lines of the Office, an organization that cohesives the youth of the region, and becomes its window into administration.

Increasing participation in their initiatives, ensuring their digital presence, strengthening relations with the associations, and exploiting the sense of belonging from somewhere among young people are the four pillars of the plan, which will be executed during one year. The weight of communicative relations will be done by digital channels, channels that succeed among our potential audience.

It’s also important to raise awareness and mobilize young people around the situation in the region, and that’s why one of the key actions will be the creation of the “day against depopulation”. With young people as protagonists, the event, celebrated in the middle of the plan, links all strategic audiences with the cause. Rural self-esteem, future opportunities, active participation and committed youth are some of the concepts that make up the storytelling of the communication plan, which is tailored to the needs of the youth of the region of Terra Alta and designed after an end that affects everyone.

This study presents the Strategic Tourism Sustainability Planning for the Community “Barranco  de Las Cinco Villas” in the province of Ávila (Spain) until 2030. It aims for a detailed study of the  situation of the tourism sector in the municipalities of Cuevas del Valle, Mombeltrán, San Esteban  del Valle, Santa Cruz del Valle and Villarejo del Valle, towns that due to their geographic and  sociocultural proximity are presented as a joint tourist destination. These towns are located in the  center of the Iberian Peninsula, between the Eastern side of the Sierra de Gredos Regional Park  and over the riverbeds of Tiétar River, thus, it is a territory of great natural wealth and magnificent  landscapes. The Puerto del Pico mountain pass, Cuevas del Valle’s causeway, or the  Alburquerque Castle in Mombeltrán are some examples of natural and cultural assets that make  them an inland rural destination with more than 40 years of experience. 

A review of issues related to strategic planning and sustainable development in rural areas of the  Sierra de Gredos is carried out from the hypotheses of: lack of measures based on the social,  economic and environmental principles of sustainability, lack of control of information related to  statistics on tourism and with the objectives of improving the sustainability of the social and  business environment and implementing a tourism strategy. Adjusting to the needs of this  professionalizing study, we applied a mixed methodological model to carry out a case study to  enunciate a situation diagnosis study, through information collection techniques through surveys  and interviews that are synthesized in the SWOT technique, for its subsequent application in  strategic measures that improve the sustainability of tourism. The actions proposal focuses on combating the current situation of demographic loss and aging, developing and strengthening the  tourism sector through actions in the medium and long term and creating a tourism  communication plan that allows the expansion of the portfolio of tourists. The applied vision is in  line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, similar both in chronology  and in the holistic understanding of the natural and human sustainable development. 

The purpose of this study is to establish a reflection on the uses of rural spaces and the potential  for sustainable development on social perspective, where tourism plays a potentially dynamic  role, and harmonizes traditions with the new demands of the global and digital environment.