Alsunga

Alsunga is one of two villages in the second smallest municipality in Latvia with 1 390 inhabitants. The local community is mainly made up of people with old cultural traditions – called suiti. The Suiti Cultural Space was inscribed in UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2009. Alsunga is a good place to live, but ongoing depopulation is reducing available resources , thereby changing the living environment and the need for services. The main priorities are to develop sustainable local food and a craft market to increase marketing volumes for home-based producers and to develop the local school. Due to administrative reforms, the Alsunga municipality will be incorporated into a much larger municipality and will become an outskirts parish. This will require the development of a strong village strategy and team to keep the development of Alsunga.

Digital Services Cluster Member

Three programming training have been organized in Alsunga, each of them creating a product that supports the goals set in the village's development strategy. A mobile application was created to promote cooperation between tourism entrepreneurs, an augmented reality learning tool was created to make the school more competitive with city schools, and a sensor station was developed that allows you to see the actual weather, as it differs in the center of the village and in the neighborhood closer to the sea. Such an approach made it possible not only to create a useful product but also to show young people that programming is not too difficult and an opportunity to earn an adequate salary without moving to the city. Also, in order to relieve the burden on the only well-maintained walking trail, which has become very popular among the townspeople, digital trail routes (.gpx files) were created, which anyone interested can download to their phone by scanning the QR code and use it using the LVM GEO application created by the State Forests of Latvia. The creation of such trails does not require any investment or maintenance. Since the events of various institutions, entrepreneurs, and non-governmental organizations are held quite often, a calendar has been created that allows to coordinate the times of the events and to see what is happening in the community in digital form.

Country

Latvia

Type

coasts, inner peripheries, sparsely populated areas

Degree of urbanization

rural

population of 600

Check out the village strategy:

Smart Village Strategy of Alsunga

Village Solutions

Alsunga Youth Days

The young people of Alsunga organize a youth day themselves every summer, inviting young people from near and far villages and towns to visit. Young people, starting from the age of 12, jointly plan a program of events, and approach popular artists in Latvia, inviting them to support them with their participation. Youth days have become very popular in a few years and already gather more than a hundred young people.

Living

Increasing marketing volumes for home producers

Weekly market (Suitu tirgus) of local food producers and artisans - widely visited and popular among residents of other regions of Latvia

Environment | Living | People

Contact Information