In the year 2000 Kirchheim im Innkreis, a small village in Upper Austria with 720 inhabitants, became the first Austrian member of the international organisation known as the “Cultural Villages of Europe” (the “Charter der Dörfer”); with the main aim and purpose to promote and advance village life and enhance rural development.  Their commitment and involvement in local and regional studies have already made the town well-known throughout Austria.  In addition and at regional level, the community play an active part in “Leader-Initiatives” in order to promote the conception of healthy and family-friendly villages to counteract the ‘brain-drain-process’.

In 2010, as a leading and recognized village within the Austrian Innviertel region, Kirchheim will become the ‘Cultural Village of Europe’ and therefore invites representatives from all of the other 11 European member villages to visit and enjoy the Innviertel region.
The Kirchheim association “Future for Sustainable Rural and Regional Development" will organise the program for all Cultural Village meetings, workshops and exchanges.

Throughout the 11 European Cultural Villages, Kirchheim is known for its spirit of innovation and the participation of its people.  There are few communities within Europe where village inhabitants contribute as much as Kirchheim to the “Agenda 21” program.  Due to the long-term co-operation between each of the "Cultural Villages of Europe", intense exchanges have been established; and these will be developed further through the project "Bürger.Nah.Versorgen" (Local Supply for Citizens) where the focus will be on sustainable cooperation.

Approximately 500 citizens from the 12 European villages are directly involved with the "Bürger.Nah.Versorgen" project.  In addition to subject-specific conversations (including appropriate EU politicians) regarding communal development, these planned events also offer sufficient time to simply get to know each other.  Cultural exchanges involving host-families’, social events and regional musical contributions are always well received and enjoyed.  Experiences gained from previous exchange programs show that these events have also raised curiosity and interest from other European countries.  These enquiries give clear evidence that by simply participating in organisations (such as the Cultural villages of Europe) has a beneficial outcome to people, villages throughout the whole of Europe and as a consequence contributes directly to a merger of a world-wide Europe.


To enable people access to information regarding the Cultural Villages and especially the project "Bürger.Nah.Versorgen", some students from the Commercial College, Ried im Innkreis (www.hak-ried.at) together with the support of their teacher (Mag. Franz Krondorfer) have created this website.  www.hak-ried.at

In addition you can also find more general information about Kirchheim im Innkreis by visiting www.kirchheim.at