RURAL FEMMES PROJECT

Rural Femmes was an Erasmus+ KA2 funded project (2019-1-FR01-KA204-062964) led by Chambre Départemental d'Agriculture de Dordogne from Periguex, France. The kick-off meeting was held in Gijon, Spain on September 26, 2019 and the project ran until February 2022.

The aim of the project was to support and empower rural women by creating and implementing a training and coaching programme to satisfy the educational needs of rural women that are working and rural women seeking work and help them acquire key skills and knowledge.

Each of the project partners produced a regional report specifying the socio-economic, educational and cultural requirements of women workers in rural areas, and formed regional support groups, or women’s think tanks, that allowed women to provide their insights into the design of the training programme. The Individual Analysis Report for the Southern Region in Ireland is available here.

Rural Femmes Transnational Training Programme seeks to fulfill two main goals:

1. Develop the women’s basic transversal skills (digital, entrepreneurial, interpersonal, etc.) and
2. Address their specific technical needs for each activity sector (such as rural companies, sustainable farming, tourism, etc.)

On October 3, 2021, Munster Technological University commenced the Rural Femmes Training Programme online. 17 women from rural backgrounds signed up to take part. The training was delivered over 10 weeks (3 evenings per week for one hour) by the Hincks Centre's Dr. Niall O'Leary, Dr. Ana Cruz Garcia and Rebecca Robinson. 

The programme consisted of three modules: Rural Tourism, Entrepreneurship, and Social Media & Marketing. The materials for each module are available for viewing / downloading by clicking on the links below.

If you have any queries or would like further information on the modules, please contact Rebecca.Robinson@mtu.ie.

Online Course for Rural Women

If your are interested in attending an online course for rural women:

• focusing on entrepreneurship, rural tourism, social media and marketing and
• connecting with and learning from like minded rural women throughout Ireland - 

Please complete the Expression of Interest Form below. More information will be available shortly and we will advise registered individuals.

Rural entrepreneurship and the rural femmes project

The Hincks Centre were delighted to host the Rural Femmes Project Multiplier Event which took place online, Thursday, March 31st, 2022 as part of MTU's Innovation and Enterprise Month.

Colleagues from Ireland presented and shared the Erasmus+ KA2 funded project pedagogical approaches, outputs, feedback and plans for the future during the event. Led by Dr Niall O’Leary, Research Fellow with the Hincks Centre, the event discussed the intellectual outputs from the project with a wider audience.

A full article 'Hincks Hosts Rural Femmes Project Multiplier Event' is available in our news section by clicking here.

Online Train the Trainer Course in Teaching Entrepreneurship

If you are interested in attending an online Train the Trainer course in Teaching Entrepreneurship, please email Rebecca.Robinson@mtu.ie.

partner locations

Chambre Départemental d'Agriculture de Dordogne from Perigueux, France is the project lead with partners from:

• Munster Technological University (Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence) – Cork, Ireland;
• Desarrollo de Estrategias Exteriores SA (Grupo DEX) – Gijon, Spain;
• Instituto Navarro de Tecnologias e Infraestructuras Agroalimentarias S.A. (INTIA) – Villava (Pamplona), Spain;
• Universitat Hohenheim – Stuttgart, Germany.

Disclaimer: This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.