It's my turn to write after Carlos told you last week in great detail what he experienced in Arroyomolinos de León (Huelva) in this article: Harvesting community and human connections: MIES program .

As you can see, for both of us, connections are paramount, and that's why we always talk about "Connected Rurality ," which usually makes a star appearance at gatherings like these. In any case, it's difficult to put into words what I felt, and to live up to Carlos's high standards. Even so, I'll try.

After the first Rural Talent Meeting, which took place from February 2nd to 4th in Aldeadávila de la Ribera (impossible to pronounce on the first try 😂), I posted on my LinkedIn profile with words of thanks and a summary of what I took away from the event so I wouldn't forget anything. I'll tell you more about that later.

But anyway, let's start from the beginning: What is this Rural Talent thing? And above all, what were we doing there? The culprits behind this whole story, and the reason I'm writing this blog post, are our friends at Rural Citizen , and in particular, Iván del Caz and Jessica López BIKOnsulting initiative , launched in the spring of 2020 to connect stakeholders, gather concerns, foster collaboration, raise awareness of and support projects that benefit rural areas, and disseminate knowledge.

What is Rural Talent?

According to the definition of Rural Citizen: “Rural Talent is the ability to understand a region in order to, from passion and knowledge, be able to lead an innovative project that responds to a social challenge with a new perspective supported by collaboration and collective intelligence.”

Connecting rural leaders in Spain

It's a great honor for me to be recognized as a Rural Talent, along with 70 other members (including Carlos) nationwide. Furthermore, we're all mapped on the Rural Talent Map , another wonderful initiative launched by the Rural Citizen team.

At the end of November, we received an invitation to participate in this first (exclusive) Rural Talent Meeting , whose objective was to connect in person, delve deeper into collaborative leadership, and co-create the foundations of this community of rural leaders. Sounds great, right? The only catch was that the maximum capacity was 30 people, so we had to decide quickly.

The limited number of places, combined with the stress of closing out 2023, and the fact that we had to finance our own travel and part of our accommodation, since we had to choose carefully where to invest our time and effort in 2024, made it quite a challenge. But I'm so glad we decided to participate! It was definitely worth it. 

I'll continue telling you about it, and I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the other people who attended. I say "people" because I'm not going to talk about their projects today. Behind the projects are the people, and communities are built by people. I already knew some of them and had had the opportunity to work with them on some projects, or we had met at other gatherings, and it was a joy to see them again in person 

• Fuensanta Martín, we were finalists for Acumen 2023 and I met her at the selection event last March; we happened to be in the same group for the team-building activities. She was also the host, since she's from Aldeadávila.

• Laura Corchado works with Fuen and we have met in video calls for a project we have in common, but I had not yet met her in person.

• María Rodríguez participated with her organization in The Break Fellowship project in 2023 and we had met online, but this was the first time we met in person at this meeting and I also went with her in the car.

• Javier Ruiz also participated in The Break Fellowship project and this was the first time we met in person.

• Lucía González, we had her as a guest on one of our webinars. I was fascinated by her story and was thrilled to finally meet her in person. I'd also recently seen her on Jesús Calleja's show, Volando Voy, which featured a visit to her hometown, Allande. I've included here if you'd like to watch it; I highly recommend it.

• Lucas Requejo, I had also met him at the Acumen 2023 finalists event. We have quite a few contacts in common and it was great to see him again and be able to have more in-depth conversations.

• Olatz Huerta, we met some time ago via video call and we are working on several projects with them, but we were finally able to hug in person.

• Ana María and Elisa Pelayo, I was lucky enough to meet them at the final event of the Ashoka Changemakers Challenge in October 2023 in Zaragoza, it was a joy to see them again. 

I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting the others directly, but I'd heard of some of them or already knew them from social media, mutual contacts, etc., and I was thrilled to finally meet them and get to know them better. Now that I've introduced everyone, I'll share what happened during those two days. 

By joining forces we go further

After talking to you about the Rural Talent Map, how many of us were already interconnected through other circles, and that our common vision is to enhance the value of rural environments... How can we still be talking about depopulated Spain?

Every time I visit a village, I become more convinced and more in agreement with what Rural Citizen promotes: "Rural Spain is full of talent ." Furthermore, I would add that what's needed is to unite our strengths and give visibility, a voice, and a vote to rural leaders. That's precisely why I'm writing this article.

Let's get down to business. Here's the full program if you want to take a look, and below is a summary of each day:

• Day 1: Friday, February 2

I was already in Madrid on Thursday; that's what happens when you're from the islands, getting around takes a long time. On Friday morning, I set off for Aldeadávila with Raúl and María. Iván had already told me, "With the three of you in the car, lots of ideas are going to come up," and he was right. We didn't stop talking on the way there or back (even though we got stuck in a terrible traffic jam with tractors). 

We arrived just in time to join the tour of the town organized by the Tourist Office. We went to see: the Hermitage of the Holy Christ of Humilladero , the views from the Mirador del Palomar and the Andrés Vaquero Ethnographic Museum, which I thought was spectacular, with all the figures made from scrap metal.

After the orientation walk, we had the welcome session where everyone introduced themselves through a "totem" (an object they always carry with them that gives them good energy). I chose a keychain with the letter "E" (for Elsa 😉) that has been with me since I first moved into an apartment with my friends when we were studying in Madrid back in 2005. One of them gave each of us a keychain with the initial of her name for our house key. Since then, it has traveled with me and has been my keychain in every house I've lived in around the world. Now that I'm back in Tenerife, it's still my keychain. For me, it means that home is wherever I am (and my keychain is), regardless of the place or country in the world I'm in. 

The funniest thing about all this is that at the end of dinner we divided up the Secret Santa gifts, which we had to exchange for zero euros and with whatever we had at home. Patxi was assigned me, and guess what he made me? A keychain with a stone from the river in his village, which he then hand-carved. On one side he put the Celtic sun symbol and on the other the symbol of Basque culture—I loved it! Coincidence? I'll leave it at that…

The best part of the night, and the perfect way to end the first day, was discovering the incredibly clear sky with excellent visibility, thanks to Lucía and her binoculars. An astrophysicist, she's decided to venture into the world of entrepreneurship with a wonderful project: Allande Stars . She's dedicated to connecting the sky and the earth, and that's exactly how we felt that night—deeply connected to the constellations, the stars, and everything Lucía explained to us.

• Day 2: Saturday, February 3

We started Saturday morning with Iván introducing us and explaining the Rural Talent Map I mentioned earlier, as well as what was expected of us. Then Casilda and Ani spoke about Ashoka  and everything they're doing for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. After that, I had the opportunity to talk about our experience in the 2023 Ashoka Changemakers Challenge, where we were finalists.

After a short coffee break, where we tried to soak up some vitamin C on the hotel terrace, we moved on to the session that was most interesting to me and where I gained the most self-awareness: the Collaborative Leadership Workshop led by Olatz, which I found incredibly practical. Through a simple test, we were able to learn more about ourselves and the animal that represents our natural personality. In my case, I'm a dolphin 🐬, and I have the ability to identify the best qualities in each team member and leverage them for the benefit of the group. Teams need a bit of every personality type to achieve balance. We learned to understand each other much better through these profiles, and I enjoyed it so much that we've already implemented it with our team in a recent team-building activity.

In the afternoon, we continued with a workshop focused on creating our own Rural Talent Community. We divided into groups and co-created the foundations for the different areas of work, which we also decided on together: Project Generation, Community, Business Model, Positive Influence (Lobbying), and Rural Talent School. It was a demanding exercise where we had to listen to each other and select the best proposals to define the objectives and lines of work for each area. 

We ended the day having dinner in the village, chatting and making connections that made you stop and think: Is all this just coincidence or cause and effect? ​​What wasn't a coincidence was that it was the village festival that weekend (San Blas), so we took advantage of it and ended the night dancing at the village fair and mingling with the locals. I have to admit I didn't last long (I had a bit of a culture shock with what a village fair means on the mainland versus in the islands 😂), and back at the hotel with Iván and María, we had a moment of laughter that I don't think I'd had in ages (I even cried!). 

• Day 3: Sunday, February 4th

The meeting was drawing to a close. We had a closing activity where everyone shared their reflection and a word that summarized what the weekend had meant to them. For me, it was clear: the first word that came to mind was CONNECTION . I was the third to speak, and I know I took it from several of my colleagues who also had it in mind. The words shared by the others resonated with me as well. Some became emotional, and they moved the rest of us, and there it was, once again, crystal clear: the magic of Connected Rurality.  

Still reeling from the emotion and with all those words swirling in our heads, we went to say goodbye to the rural setting that had welcomed us so warmly for the past two days. From the Mirador del Fraile viewpoint , we could appreciate the Duero River canyon and wave to Portugal, which lies just across the river. Right then and there, the hugs and "see you laters" began; we'll definitely stay in touch. Raúl, María, and I headed back to the capital and our reality, but not before promising to talk again soon and jot down all the ideas we had so we wouldn't forget them.

Creating connections that transform

If you've made it this far, all that's left for me to do is summarize: What am I taking away from this Rural Encounter? As I shared in my LinkedIn post: the connection I felt at many moments. I'll summarize some of them below:

1. Conversations with people that gave me goosebumps, like the ones I had with my dear Lucía and Lucas , definitely left their mark on me!

2. I realized that "dolphins" are necessary for teams to function, as happened to me with Laura .

3. The great vibe with my travel companions: Maria and Raúl, with whom I shared several hours in the car and countless anecdotes.

4. Jessica 's role as organizer and in Ivan's . Thanks to the amazing work they did, meeting deadlines and creating a trusting environment, I was able to enjoy myself and remind myself that from time to time I need to step into the other side of the equation to connect with others and with myself.

5. Patxi put together , the smiles and laughter with Pablo and Javier , Noelia's stories and much more.

Ultimately, it's the people who create this energy. The exact same gathering, in the same place, but with different people certainly wouldn't have been the same… so a huge THANK YOU to everyone who made it possible. We're more eager than ever to restore rural life to its rightful place and are counting down the days until our next meeting!