A VILLAGE in the province of Teruel is calling for a family with school-aged children to go and live there, offering guaranteed employment, three months' free rent and a heavily-discounted price thereafter.
A perfect rural setting - Griegos, Teruel province, a village of just 138 inhabitants in the heart of the southern Aragón mountains (photo: Chantejot/Wikimedia Commons)
The land-locked north-eastern region of Aragón is one of several in Spain struggling to keep its population up and fighting complete extinction, as rural isolation leads to adults of working age leaving for larger towns to be able to get jobs, and parents with children moving out due to lack of schooling facilities.
Villages in what has lately been dubbed 'Empty Spain' are trapped in a vicious circle: The only real employment is agriculture, they are too far to commute to bigger towns for other types of job and, even though the idea of working from home whilst living in an idyllic rural haven and close-knit community is proving highly attractive to an increasing number of office staff, this can only function if reliable, good-quality internet and mobile phone coverage is guaranteed.
And the dwindling rural population, with villages often up to 20 kilometres apart and separated by mountains, means telecommunications operators are not willing to invest in the infrastructure as it is not economically viable with such a small customer base; even less so when considering that those who are not forced to move away for practical reasons tend to be the elderly, who are less likely to feel the need for a mobile phone, WiFi or broadband.
Although Spain's government is working on a serious overhaul of State support for remote rural villages, which will include subsidising telecommunications installations, tax breaks and other incentives for companies which invest in these areas or set up operations there, these initiatives will, necessarily, take time – so the villages themselves are seeking quicker ways to keep their headcount up.
In the case of Aragón, its regional government revealed in recent years that around 80% of its population lives in villages with 30 or fewer inhabitants – despite its middle province, Zaragoza, being home to Spain's fourth-largest city, of the same name, and the southern and northern provinces of Teruel and Huesca respectively having some of the country's best-known and most-loved ski resorts.
The hamlet of Griegos, with 138 residents and an hour and a half from the provincial capital city of Teruel – the smallest in Spain, with only 36,000 residents – and the same distance from the capital of the province of Cuenca to the south, is a comfortably-short journey to the ski resorts of Javalambre and Valdelinares for anyone with a car.
It has a school, but with only nine pupils, its council fears authorities may be tempted to shut it down – especially if, once the children eventually leave, no further babies are born in time to keep a constant turnover.
Increasing the pupil number to 12 would mean the local school could split into two primary classes, one for older and one for younger children, so that three-year-olds and 11-year-olds did not have to share lessons and the teacher did not have to hop between them constantly, following a different curriculum for several pupils in the same session.
Local authorities are urging a family with kids of primary school age to move in, and will make a house available for them to rent at a monthly price of €225, discounted by up to 50% depending upon the number of children the occupants have.
For the first three months, the council will pay the rent for them.
Two options of full-time, permanent jobs are guaranteed – one involves serving drinks and waiting tables in the local restaurant, and the other, if the new arrivals consider they have the skills to do so, involves managing and running the village hotel.
Other than having children who would be able to attend the local school, no specific criteria have been stipulated, and nationality is not an issue – although, of course, the family in question will need to be able to speak Spanish.
Single parents or guardians are equally welcome, since the main aim is to increase pupil numbers at the school; to a certain extent, this is more important than the number of adults moving in.
Teruel's rural hospitality is an integral part of the scenery – nobody stays a newcomer for long, and even visitors are treated as one of the family almost as soon as they have unpacked.
Among the annual community pageants and fiestas the family will find themselves roped into, the most popular and famous in the Griegos area is the husky-race through the February snows.
Several of Teruel's mountain villages have working huskies for transport when deep winter comes – and farming families still have working donkeys.
The council says anyone wanting to take up the offer can call them on (0034) 978 708 022 – although if you're in the area, in keeping with the rural nature of things, you could simply pop into the local bar and ask where to find the mayor; a method that is infallible in remote villages for finding out where anyone lives or leaving them a message, and often even where the entire batch of mail for all the residents is dropped off every day.
And before you leave, you'll probably find someone has already paid for your drinks.
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