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RURAL WINGS 1st Installation – Mesta Village Pilot Site, Greece
Mesta: an insular rural community in the eastern Aegean Sea
Mesta is a small traditional village at the southwest end of the Chios island in the eastern Aegean Sea. Chios is one of the Greek islands lying opposite to the Turkish coast, constituting thus part of EU’s borderline to the East. Mesta is nowadays the only still inhabited well-preserved medieval castle-village in Greece. The village is one of the ‘Mastichochoria’, i.e. the villages in southern Chios which have been for centuries associated with the cultivation of mastic (Pistacia lentiscus). The dried raisin of mastic, which flourishes only in this part of the world, has been for centuries a renowned aromatic product with medicinal properties and culinary uses. Mesta nowadays has a small, but economically active population. There are around 350 permanent inhabitants in winter, while the population of the village surpasses 1000 during a short peak period in August.Most of the permanent inhabitants are traditional farmers, who supplement their income through minor tourist industry activities in summer. There are also a few, usually of a younger age, who are employed in services, predominantly in the public sector.
Education and lifelong learning in the village
The children of the village, numbering nowadays about twenty, used to attend the small multigrade school of Mesta. The function of this school was discontinued in 2002, as a result of a major attempt of the Greek educational authorities to merge small rural schools wherever possible, so as to form larger school units in selected rural locations. Furthermore, as a result of the centrally decided mergers of village communities into large rural municipalities comprising several villages, Mesta also lost its own local administration and became one of the administrative sections of a new municipal authority established in Pyrgi, the Municipality of Mastichochoria.
This left the Learning and Culture Association of Mesta, a decades-old local association with rich cultural activity, as the only active local agent that practically promotes lifelong learning for local people of all ages in the village, as well as a number of other initiatives for the revival of the village community and sustainable rural development. The current president of the Association, a hospital doctor of the widest possible acceptance and reputation in the small rural community, has been playing a key role in this, convincing and mobilizing citizens of all ages. It is particularly worth mentioning the Association’s vision to revive the building of the closed school, turning it into an all-day and all-age centre of learning and creativity – a vision of tremendous symbolic value for the village. This building will serve as a pilot site and learning hub for the RURAL WINGS project.
Broadband availability
The only connection to the internet available in Mesta is PSTN dial-up or ISDN through the terrestrial wired telephone network. The possibility of terrestrial broadband infrastructure reaching the village is very remote, because of the very small population, and its location in relation to the capital of the island, where most of the modern activities are concentrated (36 km from the town and port of Chios).
Mesta is the 1st RURAL WINGS pilot site with installed satellite equipment
After careful preparations and planning from HELLASAT and ELLINOGERMANIKI AGOGI, the first successful installation of the satellite equipment took place in Mesta Elementary School in 21-22 December 2006. HELLASAT, the RW satellite provider for Greece and Cyprus, provided and installed the satellite dish and DVB-RCS terminal in Mesta Elementary School, while ELLINOGERMANIKI AGOGI was responsible for making the necessary contacts with the Learning and Culture Association of Mesta relevant to the installation. Furthermore, ELLINOGERMANIKH AGOGI is constantly monitoring all the post-installation activities and is already planning its next steps for the e-learning framerwork and subsequent training of the users.
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