Orexa is one of the smallest towns in Gipuzkoa, with 122 inhabitants. In recent months, however, different recognition and awards have been received through projects that maintain and promote the rural life of the local population, associations and institutions: Cooperative Oihan Txiki won the World Cheese Awards gold medal in December, and in January, the Gipuzkoa Rural Development Associations awarded the Landaola Prize to the ‘Orexa Bizirik’ project. This last prize has been a recognition of the work they have done for years to keep the people alive.

Fruit of the collective effort of citizenship

Iker Karrera, a member of Tolomendi, explained at the Ataria de Tolosaldea broadcast that they decided to award the Landaola prize for public institutions to the project ‘Orexa Bizirik’ to underscore the efforts being made in these years as a town. “They remain firmly in this attempt to be a living people every year, every legislature, with one project or another,” he said. Carrera highlighted the joint work of all and all, being a small town. The project, he explained, is part of the collaboration between different generations and the collective effort of the general public.

The project of the cooperative Oihan Txiki, the development of housing, the commitment to guarantee the basic infrastructures in the municipality… The initiatives that have been launched to revitalize Orexa are divided into five areas: environment, energy, communication, and a cooperative and accommodation that work to the fullest among the citizens. The last achievement has been to reopen the hostel. “In December the hostel opened a year. We have tried to turn that around again: it is not only a place dedicated to hospitality, it is a meeting point for the citizens and a welcoming point for those who come to us”, said Mayor Eneko Maioz in the Landaberri program of the Basque Country Irratia. On the other hand, they want the Hostel to be a reference point for local products

Multiannual trajectory

Although he has recently been named ‘Orexa Bizirik’, Mayor Maioz stresses that the beginnings of this project were almost thirty years ago. “Then they began to think about what could be done to keep the young people in the village. They saw the importance of creating an economic agent and a job opportunity, and then the cooperative was launched.”

As at that time, in the current project, the challenge is for young people to stay in the village and make a living people. “From the City Hall we are clear: We have named Orexa Bizirik as a country project because we believe that this cannot be a project of the City Hall, but must be a project shared by all the people.” That was, in Maioz’s view, the real value that the Landaola Prize wanted to reward: that the orexarras are the drivers of the projects that began in these years.