"Rural Dialogues" research

Helduak Zabaltzen has been working for over a year on the reflection and transformation of the Social Centres for the Elderly (CSPM) in the Basque Country. Given the orographic diversity and realities of our territories, the strategic decision was taken to divide the research-actions of the process into two stages, one in the urban environment (2022-2023) and the other in the rural environment (2023-2024). In this second year, the time has come to address the challenges of the CSPMs in the rural environment.

It is understood that there is not just one way of being rural in the Social Centres for the Elderly (CSPM) in the Basque Country. For this reason, in order to gain a better understanding of the reality of the CSPMs in rural areas, it has been necessary to turn to the source of knowledge: their protagonists. Through a series of rural dialogues, the aim was to answer far-reaching questions collectively, respecting the socio-demographic characteristics of each territory in the dialogues.

What difficulties do social centres for the elderly have in keeping alive in rural areas, what changes would we like to achieve, how can we stimulate the participation of new generations? 

This publication brings together the reflections and analyses of nearly fifty voices that have participated in this process. In the quest to give people a voice, the text presents the analysis of the dialogues with some testimonies that reflect these same ideas in their own words. The testimonies are presented in their original language, with their corresponding translation in the appendix.