Lower Saxony information and competence center for rural areas
The Lower Saxony Information and Competence Center for Rural Areas was located in the Amtshof Eicklingen between 2005 and 2008 in the town of Eicklingen in the Celle district, which is part of the Flotwedel municipality .
Under the motto “Competence in Rural Areas”, the Amtshof, as an information and competence center, should collect knowledge about rural development in Lower Saxony, process it and make it available to an interested public. The basic aim was to strengthen the rural area in Lower Saxony. The people living and working in it should be qualified as independent actors with decision-making and action competence. They should be enabled to develop implementation-oriented strategies and projects that serve as contributions to the design of their living environment.
At the core of the offer were (and still are) so-called "preparation and information seminars for village renewal (VIP)", which are held every day and a half and with which an individual target for the upcoming village renewal could be worked out for each village. With the start of the activities of the Lower Saxony Information and Competence Center in the Amtshof Eicklingen in 2005, the VIP was further developed and established by the local education group, consisting of local and regional planners, educators and the Lower Saxony Administration for Land Development.
“The VIP in Lower Saxony's village renewal has advanced from a model project to a successful model after a long journey. The first models and visions that emerged in the VIP have been given a supporting force for the village renewal process in the participating villages. The villages of the VIP model are now among the successful types of village renewal. The successes achieved here should no longer be reserved for individual municipalities, but should be made available to rural municipalities and their villages on a broad basis within the framework of a comprehensive education campaign for rural areas. Village renewal must face this task and continue the path of change that has begun from more action-related village renewal to an individual one that takes account of the respective village challenges. Against this background, village renewal planning sees itself more as a development process with the result of a holistic strategy oriented towards the development of the community and the region and a site-specific 'director's book - how we want to preserve our village through development'. (Zukunftswerkstatt Schwalingen, 2009) for the upcoming village renovation, because as planning. According to Professor Pfaff (Competitive Intelligence, 2006), managers who are based on visions and models belong to the successful types among managers. Why shouldn't what applies to the economy also apply to a state subsidy program? In some places, village renewal is being dismissed as a 'feel-good promotion' and 'red roofs program'. With the VIP, Lower Saxony's village renewal 'invests' right from the start in people and then specifically in buildings, paths and squares - a smart business decision. The new village arises in the head. "(Klaus Karweik, LGLN Lower Saxony, in ASG, rural area, edition 03/2009, p. 33)
Through the cooperation with the Lower Saxony Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Consumer Protection and State Development , the Nds. Information and competence center in the Amtshof Eicklingen as a model for public-private partnership in rural Lower Saxony. The "Eicklinger Amtshof GmbH" was a sole subsidiary of the integrated municipality of Flotwedel in the district of Celle. The conversion of the former administrative courtyard in Eicklingen, which had been vacant for three decades, to become the “Lower Saxony Information and Competence Center for Rural Areas” is a project of socio-cultural village renewal in Flotwedel.
The model project expired at the end of 2008. The Samtgemeinde Flotwedel sold the "Eicklinger Amtshof GmbH" to the Amtshof Eicklingen Planungsgesellschaft mbH & Co KG, which not only manages the historic building for them, but also continues to manage the preparation and information seminars on village renewal on behalf of the Samtgemeinde Flotwedel with great success and popularity performs. In the meantime, well over 700 actors have taken part in the measure and are all positive. Almost 90% of the participants would recommend other villages to hold a VIP, over 50% consider further information and educational measures to be important.