School for female shepherds aims to restore balance in Spain’s countryside
As more women leave rural areas for cities, course forms part of drive to revive villages
The rugged pathways crisscross Spain, sprawling across an estimated 1% of its territory. Etched into the land over centuries, the country’s livestock roads have long been the domain of solitary men leading their flocks to lush pastures.
Now a new initiative is looking to change this with the launch of the country’s first shepherding school for women. The aim of the School for Shepherdesses of the 21st Century is twofold: offering women a foothold in a trade long dominated by men, while also throwing a lifeline to the thousands of Spanish towns that are slowly fading from the map.
“There are other shepherd schools that women can attend,” said Susana Pacheco, the driving force behind the new school, headquartered in the northern region of Cantabria. “But the difference is that we’ve thought this through from the perspective of women. That’s why we’re talking about work-life balance, creating networks of mutual support and collaboration.”
The project is being launched under the banner of the Spanish Association Against Depopulation, a national organisation that works to bolster the prospects of areas where the population is plummeting.
The school’s focus on women was born out of a striking realisation that women were abandoning rural areas in greater numbers than men, leaving in their wake an ageing population, said Lidia Díaz of the association. “Villages are being masculinised,” she added. “It’s a step backwards.”
It’s a scene playing out across Spain, where the population across more than half of the country’s surface area has been steadily whittled away by urbanisation. In a bid to stave off slow death, villages across Spain have got creative, wooing would-be residents with bargains on land, babysitters and even bachelors. Few of these initiatives, however, have focused solely on women.
The nine-month shepherding course includes nearly 500 hours of online training and one weekend a month of hands-on instruction set against the mountains and deep valleys of Cantabria, and after registration got under way earlier this year, 265 applications came pouring in. “It was a very pleasant surprise,” said Pacheco. “It’s clear that we’re meeting a need that exists in society.”
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Thousands protest in Madrid to demand action to combat problems of depopulation
02.04.2019 Rural demonstrators from 24 provinces marched on the Spanish capital to call for access to better infrastructure and services in Spain’s dwindling towns and villages
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Madrid on Sunday to demand an urgent solution to Spain’s problem of depopulation. Nearly 100 organizations from 24 provinces took part in the protest, which organizers labeled as the “revolt of an empty Spain.” They were demanding a cross-party plan that would help them to continue living in their dwindling villages and provincial capitals.
The protest was organized by depopulation advocacy groups Teruel Existe (Teruel Exists) and Soria ¡Ya!. Many rural protesters from towns in Huesca, Albacete, Zaragoza, Zamora, Ciudad Real, La Rioja, Granada and Jaén came to the Spanish capital to demand access to better infrastructure and services. “We’re not asking for a hospital in every town, or an AVE station [a high-speed rail in Spain], or a Maluma concert. We want real things,” said Emiliano Antolín, a 38-year-old mechanic from Palencia, a city in northern Spain. “We have internet at the generous speed of three megas. It’s impossible to compete with those who have 300.
In Spain, 48% of municipalities have a population density of less than 12.5 inhabitants per square kilometer, a figure that the European Union considers to be very low. Between 2011 and 2017, approximately 62% of towns lost inhabitants, according to government data, and even cities with a population between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants have been in decline in the last decade.
Ahead of the April 28 general elections, electoral campaigns have focused their efforts on these dwindling towns by including measures against depopulation in a bid to win votes. In fact, representatives from parties such as Ciudadanos (Citizens), the Popular Party (PP), Unidas Podemos and Vox attended the protest – but not everyone was happy about their presence.“People don’t want the politicians here,” said Vanessa García, the spokesperson for Soria ¡Ya!. “This is a citizen protest. We are here because of them.”
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