Creating urban alliances

In a rural coliving space, creating urban alliances is key to the area’s prosperity. I briefly discussed it in a previous post about how I opened a rustic coliving room. This time I’ll go a bit deeper and explain it more thoughtfully.

This idea dates back to May 2020, when Africa from Arroelo contacted me about a European project about rural. A Polinizadora project wanted to know more about coliving and this rural initiative.

Finally, by the end of May, Africa from Arroelo, Maria from A Polinizadora, and Nacho from Ticket2Europe came to Anceu Coliving. The idea was to meet each other and see if there would be possibilities for some alliance.

As you can imagine, there were many possibilities for collaboration.

First visit from Arroelo, an urban coworking space
First visit from Arroelo, an urban coworking space

Anceu week test with an urban community​

Less than a month after the first meeting, I invited Arroelo’s coworkers to Anceu Coliving for a week. It was an excellent opportunity to test the space. It was also fantastic for Arroelo’s coworkers to see each other after the covid lockdown.

The experience was good on both sides because it let me make many improvements in the place and for the Arroelo community to take a sneak peek of what Anceu would be like.

During that week, among other things, Maria from DrLivingHome started to design some of the spaces and created the mural we now have in the cafe.

Exchange between urban and rural spaces​

During the Anceu week test, Arroelo and Anceu signed an agreement under the Creative Commons Community project. This agreement would allow people from Anceu to work in Arroelo and vice-versa.

During the first months, when the COVID situation wasn’t challenging, colivers such as Anne, Sarah or Kathrine took advantage of the agreement and went to Arroelo to work.

On the other side, Elisabeth from Zengoala came to Anceu to do a zentangle session with the Anceu community. Also, Dani Antelo came and created this fantastic video about both communities, Arroelo and Anceu.

Building other alliances​

New alliances have been created through the one between Anceu and Arroelo.

Among these alliances, I can mention, among others:

  1. Joana from Dinamo10,
  2. European Creative Hubs Network
  3. Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs
  4. Pont Up Store

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