Students bring a breath of fresh air to Althofen: Rurasm starts!

Students bring a breath of fresh air to Althofen: Rurasm starts!

Althofen, Österreich - The innovative student exchange program Rurasmus has found its way into the municipality of Althofen. Since April 2025, the students Chantal Zankow and Neele wings have lived on site and work on community -specific questions. Zankow is dedicated to the protection and connection of natural areas such as the Lower Moor and the Gurk-Au, while wings analyzed the city's innovation potential in order to position Althofen as part of an educational hub. The project brings fresh perspectives and ideas into rural areas and makes Althofen a model community as part of the program. According to klick-kaernten.at, Mayor Walter Zemrosser and city councilor Wolfgang Leitner proudly show the participation in this transformative project.

The Rurasmus program is a branch of the popular Erasmus program and enables students to develop their own project issues and bring them into urban work. This makes Althofen the first municipality in Carinthia with such an exchange offer. The municipality thus pursues the goal of promoting the exchange between science and practice and supporting innovations in rural areas. Two jobs for students were advertised that deal specifically with the design of green spaces and innovation structures, the municipality on its website althofen.gv.at.

Integration into local development strategies

The knowledge of the students flow directly into the local development agenda. The main topics for the further development of the climate and energy model region (KEM) are already part of this agenda. Possible developments such as co-working spaces and shared spaces approaches also play a role here. Vice Mayor Michael Baumgartner, Vice Mayor Doris Hofstätter and Wolfgang Leitner work closely together to create an innovative platform for cooperation. This should help to strengthen the local community and generate new ideas.

Chantal Zankow and Neele wings not only bring their scientific training with them, but also an external perspective on the challenges that rural regions have to master today. Your weekly blog posts, which are published on the social media channels and the homepage of the municipality of Althofen, enable the community to participate in their findings and experiences.

cultural education in rural areas

While the Rurasmus program for Althofen plays a central role in the promotion of innovations, general research on cultural education shows that rural regions are often disadvantaged. According to kubionline.de, the participation of Germany in 2019 points out unequal educational opportunities. However, cultural education could promote participation in part and thus also support democratization processes. Following this problem, the funding guideline "Cultural Education in Rural Areas" of the BMBF aims to research the role of cultural education in structural -weak regions.

Research includes many disciplines, including educational, cultural, art and social sciences, and has a funding volume of around 12.1 million euros for the period from 2019 to 2024. Several projects analyze the importance of cultural education as an access to the access in rural areas, whereby the effects of the corona pandemic are also taken into account. The close cooperation between the students from Althofen and such research projects could thus make a valuable contribution to strengthening cultural education and regional development