GrowBiz Team Members Travel to Zamora for RURACTIVE project

On 16 September, team members Graeme and Becca travelled to Zamora in the Northwest of Spain, a city and municipality close to the Portuguese border, to attend a 3-day Knowledge Transfer Workshop and Peer-to-Peer Exchange with the Dynamos and Technical Partners involved in the RURACTIVE project. Read about their experiences and what they’ve learnt below:

DAY 1 & 2 - BECCA

After a slight panic that we’d boarded the wrong train, we stepped on to the platform in Zamora and made our way to the hotel. Tired from our respective journeys, we were grateful to our Spanish colleague Diana Valero from GrowBiz’s Scottish partner in the project, the James Hutton Institute, for helping us navigate our way to a nearby restaurant for a delicious meal before heading to bed, ready to start work the next day.

After a day and a half of intense work at the Knowledge Transfer part of the visit and buoyed by a beer and a wine with our tapas for lunch, Graeme and I set off with the other participants for the first afternoon of the Peer-to-Peer Exchange. This was our opportunity to see solutions developed by the other Dynamos (in this case, DZ & CARTIF) and to learn from them / use them as inspiration for solutions to implement and hopefully solve economic, social or climate change related challenges facing our rural communities, now and in the future.

Arriving in the municipality of Bermillo de Sayago, around 40 minutes outside of Zamora city, we were escorted into the Town Hall which serves as a focal point and hub for the community. After introductions to the mayor of the municipality, we were asked to gather around a device that looked a bit like a ticket machine in a train station. The device, Pulso Vital (Vital Heartbeat) – is a technology that allows residents of the village to perform an on-the-spot electrocardiogram, whenever they like, as a means of preventing strokes which are particularly prevalent in the region. If the results are concerning, they’re sent to a doctor electronically and an appointment is arranged for them to be checked over in person.

After we’d all checked our hearts were healthy, we were escorted upstairs to listen to a presentation by a lady leading a project called, Silver Digi: Monitoring the elderly at their homes, in Zamora. The project uses wearable devices and IOT (internet of things) technologies to monitor older people, who are otherwise healthy and well, in their homes. A group of carers check for any unusual activity (or inactivity) of their patients, forming a close bond / friendship with them and knowledge of their daily habits.

After the presentation, we headed out into the village, to a lovely house overlooking fields of sheep, to meet one of the older people – 86-year-old Manuel, a former banker and now painter, who greeted us with a smile and not the slightest hint of overwhelm as he welcomed 20 strangers from Austria, Italy, Sweden, Ukraine and of course, Scotland, into his home. After a brief tour of the downstairs living room and kitchen, where shelves were full of framed pictures of family, and a rendition of Happy Birthday in English and Ukrainian (his birthday was the day before), he took us into his art studio. He beamed with pride as he showed us roof tiles that he had painted with pictures of local wildlife. It highlighted for us the importance of art and creativity in our lives, particularly later in our lives, helping keep older people mentally active and happy and healthy.

The real reason we were there of course, was to see the wearable / monitoring devices that Manuel had on his person and strategically placed around his home to keep track of his whereabouts – from opening the fridge, to moving his favourite chair in the kitchen, to using the bathroom. You could tell that he was much happier living in the home he had shared with his family and was grateful for the technologies and care of local people that allowed him to do so. It was a true highlight of the trip for us and one we will remember for a long time.

DAY 3 - GRAEME

On Day 3 we visited the “Crisol Labyrinth” project, located in the municipality of San Cebrián de Castro. It is a sculpture studio-workshop and teaching centre for rural inhabitants. Eventually, subject to funding being secured, there will be a Sculpture Museum located in a field adjacent to the workshop, in the shape of a labyrinth, per the first image below. The Sculptor, whose idea this is, has been producing art for over 25 years in his studio, also shown in the first image. There is a wide variety of sculptures including dramatic pieces like in the second image:

The project has engaged a cohort of single, elderly, members of the nearby village to learn basic sculpting and produce basic sculptures, which will form a frieze surrounding the labyrinth. Participants have seen improvements in their mental health and wellbeing by reducing their feelings of loneliness.

There are more than 500 villages in the province of Zamora, and only a few with a population over 1,000. It is becoming extremely difficult to provide cost effective healthcare to an ageing population dispersed over a wide area. We visited a small village to see a pilot of how they plan to tackle this. It is called the “Comitas E-health” project.

Their solution is a purpose-built ‘Medical Bus’ (costing up to EUR 1 million) that can be driven to all the villages and provide ‘Telemedicine’ diagnosis to wherever the patient is, saving unnecessary trips to Zamora City for the elderly. The patient receives their consultation on the bus, via video-conference with a healthcare professional, and this may include undertaking screening using the medical devices provided. The diagnosis can include X-rays, Ultrasound, dermatology (including nose and ears) and ophthalmology checks.

In the afternoon of Day 3, we boarded the train back to Madrid, feeling inspired by our visit to Zamora. We were hugely impressed by the solutions we saw and the obvious care and attention that is shown to the inhabitants of the municipality, particularly the older people.

We’d like to extend our thanks to our colleague at the Diputacion de Zamora, Jose Angel Cases Barrigón, for organising such a wonderful and thought-provoking Peer-to-Peer Exchange and for his generous hospitality.

Acknowledgment: This activity is organised within Horizon Europe project RURACTIVE on Empowering rural communities to act for change (2023-2027) -https://www.ruractive.eu/. RURACTIVE has received funding from the European Union under the Horizon Europe grant agreement No. 101084377, from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract No. 23.00395 and the UK Research and Innovation under contract No. 10069340.