The cross-sectional working group "Gender, Migration and the Social Sector" of the Research Network for Social Law and Social Policy (Foss) at the University of Applied Sciences Fulda and the University of Kassel organised a specialist workshop entitled "Ehrenamt-Gender-Migration; Herausforderungen ländlicher Räume" (Volunteer-Gender-Migration; Challenges of Rural Areas).

How can rural areas meet the particular challenges of the consequences of demographic change and ongoing migration processes? Around 30 participants, experts from practice and science, discussed this question on 16 and 17 July 2014 in Fulda. The core objective of the workshop was to discuss current discourses and experiences on voluntary work and engagement in rural areas through a science-practice transfer in order to identify and point out future needs, development potentials and strategies.

Based on the contribution of Dr. Annett Steinführer (Thünen Institute for Rural Areas, Braunschweig) on "Demarcation and challenges of rural areas" and the contribution of Prof. Dr. Chantal Munsch (University of Siegen) on "Theoretical entry and critical perspective of migration and voluntary work", the participants were able to gain an overview of the current state of science. On the second day of the event, examples of concrete practical projects at the interface of gender, migration and voluntary work as well as the exchange of experience between representatives of practice and science led to the identification of 5 (key) topics, which were worked on in short workshops across disciplines with regard to approaches for action for sustainable development potentials in the environment of the cross-sectional task "voluntary work-gender-migration" of rural areas.

The event took place in cooperation with the Scientific Centre for Society and Sustainability (CeSSt) at Fulda University of Applied Sciences and was funded by the 'Research for Practice' campaign of the Hessian universities and by the cooperation between Fulda University of Applied Sciences and Sparkasse Fulda.

In addition to the programme, the presentations by Dr Annett Steinführer and Prof. Dr Chantal Munsch are available for download.