The Dunkelsteinerwald sub-region covers 6 municipalities and is home to almost 10,000 people. The area is surrounded by the district capitals Melk and Krems as well as the provincial capital St Pölten. In 2010/2011, the micro-region created a micro-regional development concept for the region’s strategic alignment. The topics of “Leisure & Local Recreation”, “Health & Social Affairs” as well as “Economy & Labour Market”, “Energy & Environment” and “Identity & Marketing” were selected as focal issues of the micro-region for the coming years. A public participation process was created to generate project ideas and identify initial potential projects for implementation.
One such project deals with a regional event that bundles together all regional initiatives and offers entrepreneurs a presentation space. The ”Dunkelsteiner Erlebnisschau” was previously organised in autumn 2013 and spring 2016, and presented a range of offers from and for the region. In addition to this, visitors were offered a comprehensive supporting programme matched to the regional focal topics. The bundling of the initiatives was a success and resulted in very pleasing attendance figures for the event.
As before, the supporting programme will focus on the Dunkelsteinerwald and reflect the micro-regional development concept. In the area of “Leisure & Local Recreation”, an educational guided tour of a forest will be offered. The focal point “Economy & Labour Market” will be presented by the many exhibitors on site and a start-up service. The energy and environment agency of Lower Austria represents the area of “Energy & Environment” with its “We-live-sustainably” stand. This topic will be supplemented with the “Garden-on-tour” stand of the association “Natur im Garten”. The focal point “Marketing & Identity” will be expressed in a traditional costume show and a musical pre-lunch drink.
The organisation of the event, the provision of the infrastructure and the public relations work will be supported by the project. As the participating municipalities come from two different LEADER regions (Wachau-Dunkelsteinerwald and Mostviertel-Mitte), the project is being implemented as a cooperation project with the LEADER region Mostviertel-Mitte.
Discussed in the project selection committee: 21.11.2018
Project type: cooperation project
Project promoter: Arbeitskreis Wachau Dunkelsteinerwald Regionalentwicklungs GmbH
Funding level: 50%
Project duration: 01.12.2018 – 31.12.2019
Supported by the federal government, the federal province and the European Union (LEADER).