NORD+ 2017 INTENSIVE COURSE Rural development in the era of green and silver economies THE CASE OF ALŪKSNE, LATVIA Roberts Georgs Fimbauers Jolanta Kudulytė Tuuli Elisa Mäkinen Wojtek Mościński RĪGA, 2017 Table of contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Alūksne municipality .................................................................................................................................................. 4 Methods ....................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Choosing the method for the research .................................................................................................................. 8 Data sources ............................................................................................................................................................ 8 Interviews ................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Analysis .................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Aging in the society and moving from the rural to the urban area ................................................................... 9 Theory ........................................................................................................................................................................ 10 Results ........................................................................................................................................................................ 11 Social service centre in Alūksne municipality .................................................................................................... 11 NGO’s .................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Development in Alūksne ...................................................................................................................................... 14 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................. 15 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................................. 16 APPENDIXES: ......................................................................................................................................................... 17 2 Introduction The developments in medicine in XVIII and XIX centuries have changed our life significantly. With the inventions of antibiotics, anesthetics (still far from being safe for the patients and the desired effect, but significantly better than huge amounts of alcohol used before (Wong et al. 1997)) and better awareness with regard to disinfecting, previously lethal issues are not life-threatening anymore. The mortality in all age groups dropped down greatly and average life length had increased (Manivannan 2008). Vast majority of people will agree on that it was a positive change, but modern era societies need to face newly arisen problem - progressing ageing of the population. It is a global issue and we need to adopt our current approach to the new realities of living. Percentage of 60+ years old people is increasing overtime, while amount of newly born children is usually lower due to common nowadays model of families with one or two children replacing multi-generation houses with multiple sons and daughters. In the case of Alūksne municipality, people are coping with another problem as well - people emigrate to bigger cities either in Latvia or abroad, mostly looking for better future perspectives and opportunities. The unemployment rate in Alūksne region oscillates, depending on the season, around the level of 12% (Interview nr 1), so job seeking is one of the reasons. It is even more emphasized by the proximity of Estonia, which is a popular destination for a part of labour migrants, mostly due to comparatively high salaries. Though, many of the people are looking for the better place for studying, especially regarding tertiary education. This can be applied mostly to younger people, however while emigrating, they sometimes take parts of their families with them (Interview nr 1). The paper tries to explore the possible effects of increasing average age of inhabitants of Alūksne municipality on different perspectives. Main research question is How does aging affect the municipality of Alūksne? Moreover, we are trying to focus on answers on sub-questions stated below. We find worth researching what are the possible associations between progressing ageing and: accessibility of social services main aims of local NGOs and its impact on the area development of the overall municipality. Such a set of questions was carefully selected according to couple of factors. Firstly, we focused on what can bring a relevant contribution to the field, possibly constituting a valuable set of information to the authorities responsible for planning and development. We boldly think, that municipality of Alūksne can be seen as valuable region of Latvia, and that current weaknesses can be turned into region’s strengths with help from NGO’s and authorities, if only they are aware enough of the current situation. Even though of current problems, like shortage of services (Interview nr 1) and huge amount of people needing help (in case of family doctors, there are 9 of them currently working in the municipality, what gives the amount of 600-1200 patients every general practitioner is responsible for), with the proper management we can see reality changing - new social care centres are being created and the bonds of the elderly communities are growing stronger and stronger. Also, their contribution to the society can be clearly visible (Interview nr 2). Secondly, accessibility of information was considered. The language barrier was negatively affecting both pace of collecting and analysing data and reliability of the interviews conducted due to necessary translations. And finally, while having a quite limited time period planned for conducting the research, we had to narrow down the study as much as possible, for the sake of getting comprehensive amount of data on the topic. 3 Even by comparing the current situation to the order of things from couple of years ago (Berjoza et al. 2013), we can see that education had seen great improvements. Although the municipality still does not have any higher education institutions, music school, sports school and dance classes are inviting the youth and providing good quality teaching in the area. Situation in Alūksne is not isolated; actually vast majority of municipalities (except the outskirts of Riga) in Latvia had experienced the decrease in overall population as a result of the outcoming migration. It obviously had a negative impact on the society, but proper actions from the government are meant to make the lives of all types of disadvantaged people (e.g. poor, disabled, elderly) easier and help them have an impact on the community, showing them that they are as valuable as everyone else. The first part of research paper aims to provide sufficient amount of information on the background, it is, description of the municipality, statistical data on current age structure and changes in amount of inhabitants and administrative units in the municipality - division in parishes (pagasts) as a result of reform in 2009. It is followed by discussion about methods used in the research and explanations why that particular choice was made. Then, theory will try to provide the framework for the research. Fourth part of the paper focuses on two before mentioned global phenomena: aging of the population and migration in rural-urban context. The next part will be devoted to the more and more common broad choice of social activities organized by local NGO’s and governments to enrich lives of elderly citizens in new experiences. The paper ends with a conclusion of the conducted research and possible future scenarios for the area. The predictions are being made as a result of fruitful research and interviews made, with the cooperation of the Head of Planning and Development department. Alūksne municipality Alūksne municipality is an administrative unit and a part of Vidzeme planning region. Alūksne municipality is located in North-western part of Latvia in Vidzeme planning region (Figure 1). The municipality was formed in 2009 by merging 15 parishes of the old Alūksne county (Alsviķi parish, Anna parish, Ilzene parish, Jaunalūksne parish, Jaunanna parish, Jaunlaicene parish, Kalncempji parish, Liepna parish, Maliena parish, Mālupe parish, Mārkalne parish, Pededze parish, Veclaicene parish, Zeltiņi parish, Ziemeri parish, and the town of Alūksne, excluding Ape, Gaujiena, Trapene and Vireši parishes which now make up Ape municipality) (Novadu karte, 2009). The administrative centre of the new municipality was created in old county centre of Alūksne. It is a municipality that borders Estonia and Russia. Because of border to Russia this is also