Description de l'organisation

ADER-GÂNDARA – Associação de Desenvolvimento Rural das Terras da Gândara is a non profit association that aims to promote the development of the Gândara region. Located in the coast line of the upper northwest central region in Portugal, its area of influence includes the municipalities of Ílhavo, Vagos, Aveiro e Gafanhas.

Although the Gândara region is not far from the second biggest urban agglomerate in Portugal – Oporto, it is characterized by a predominance of rural activities related to agriculture, cattle and equine raising, fishery and also industry and tourism.

The ADER association is a recent association and was founded to respond to the Gândara region needs, as identified in reports like the “Diagnóstico Social” produced by the local network “Rede Social”, formed between local public institutions, social and educational work associations and local regular and professional schools.:
- Level of unemployment
- Lower work expectations of the population
- Lower literacy levels and consequent school depreciation.

Working locally and directly with the population, ADER, pursuing its aims, contributes to the improvement of the social, cultural, educational and economical conditions of the region and the population.

Being a regional development association, one could say that the target group is the whole population in the sense that the work developed by ADER and the groups involved may produce a positive impact in the region and in the population.

Despite the large and indirect target group defined, ADER develops its work approaching specific targets due to their pressing needs and multiplication potential:
➲ Young adults – focusing on transversal skills through leisure activities and employability through professional training
➲ Children – leisure and free time occupation promoting social and citizenship skills
➲ Elderly people – occupation and inclusion in an active life
➲ People with disabilities(youngsters and adults) – through the partnerships established with other organisations

In order to achieve its aims, ADER develops different activities in three main areas of intervention: economical and political, training and production of knowledge.

All ADER’s projects and activities are aimed to have an economical, educational, formative, social and cultural impact in the region and are of its own initiative or of partners having ADER’s clear support/partnership:
➲ Professional training: hard-skills - agricultural activities, rural development and local craft tradition and/or tourism and ICT use, thus contributing to the employability in areas such as agriculture, industrial maintenance, metal-mechanics, but also tourism and other services;
➲ Intervention in political strategies for the region: Producing evaluation and innovation reports, writing recommendations and opinions about the implementation of politics and necessary means to ensure local development;
➲ Economical growth: support innovation and qualification improvement of local entrepreneurial young people, and promoting and disseminating local/regional/national/transnational strategies.
➲ Social intervention: contribute to the integration of disadvantaged people – economic difficulties, disabilities, cultural differences, but also, in partnership with other associations, respond to the needs for free time occupation of children and elderly contributing to the informal learning of new skills as ICT and transversal soft-skills.

To develop all these activities, ADER has established local partnerships with different associations, such as:
- EPADRV – professional school for the touristic and rural development of the region;
- MUTAÇÃO – consultancy in the field of professional training;
- VERSUS – ICT projects and training and several other associations and public institutions that work in the social/educational field and that have as target groups: children, elderly and people with disabilities.

ADER has three offices established in the region which guarantees a proximity work with the population, other institutions and local authorities. This way, the response to the needs of the region might be more effective, contributing to a faster economical growth and a true development in its social/cultural/educational conditions.

Being ADER a recently registered association, born out of the will and informal activities of a group of local actors, the participation in these programmes may allow it to grow with a broader perspective of what are the most adequate responses to the growth of the Gândara region.