In Spain, using the knowledge of the elderly to enhance the territory and the environment.
EDP supports the ASÓN LAB: Weaving networks for the transmission of knowledge project, promoted by Red Cambera in Cantabria, whose main aim is to use the knowledge of the elderly as a tool to enhance the territory and the environment.
Valuing the transmission of knowledge
With support from the EDP Foundation, Red Cambera launched the project "ASÓN LAB: Tejiendo redes para la transmisión de saberes" ("Weaving networks for the transmission of knowledge"). Through its implementation, this non-profit association in Cantabria aims to integrate the knowledge of the elderly about the environment into land management, recognizing and valuing the usefulness and importance of their knowledge.
The project, which is still in its early stages, is open to the participation of all people and entities interested in collaborating. To this end, several meetings will be held in order to promote the participation and collaboration of the territory's inhabitants, with the aim of describing the existing reality, having the elderly as the purveyors of knowledge par excellence.
Ultimately, the intention is to create a community management tool that will serve to find joint conservation solutions that can improve their lives and that of the environment.
Taking advantage of the importance of the Asón River, as the central axis of the region, the project will be developed in six of its municipalities: Ampuero, Arredondo, Ramales de la Victoria, Rasines, Ruesga and Soba. It will last one year and, at the end, a guide will be created that will bring together all the knowledge gathered during the process, so that it can be replicated in other territories.
The project was designed with the following main objectives:
- Combat the loneliness of elderly people;
- Recognize the knowledge of elderly people, as well as their vast and rich life experience and ability to contribute to society;
- Create spaces for socialization to facilitate reconnection with the natural environment and generate actions to recover degraded areas;
- Establish new forms of participation and governance of the common goods linked to the natural heritage;
- To value traditional knowledge, integrating it in the ecosystem recovery processes.
The Asón Lab project was awarded a prize in the 2022 edition of the EDP Solidarity (EDP Solidária) program, an EDP Foundation social initiative, which aims to promote sustainable projects designed to respond to social needs, promoting improvement in the quality of life and the integration of vulnerable people and groups at risk of exclusion, as well as stimulating employment and entrepreneurship.
