Intercultural Coexistence Service in neighbourhoods of Madrid

The Intercultural Coexistence Service in neighbourhoods is a Social and Community project funded by the Madrid City Council's Department of Families, Equality and Social Welfare from 2018.

The project is being developed in 12 neighbourhoods in 8 districts in the south-eastern arc of the city of Madrid. These are areas with a high cultural diversity that also present other factors of social factors of social vulnerability.

The project's objective is to promote community processes aimed at favouring citizen coexistence, among people and groups of different origins, ethnicities, genders and ages, different origins, ethnicities, genders and ages.

Community projects in areas with a high level of cultural diversity work on the basis of from the construction of a common "we", as a neighbourhood, with shared dreams and problems that unite us in the search for solutions.

In order to walk this path together, it is necessary to break down the barriers of prejudice and put on the community agenda those issues that until now have been uncomfortable and complex and therefore have not been addressed.

For this reason, the Coexistence Service facilitates the anti-rumour strategy Dismantling Racist Topics. Through community meetings, intercultural dialogue is promoted in safe intercultural dialogue is promoted in safe environments, where people from the neighbourhood can meet and empathize with each other, neighbourhood, professional resources and the administration, with whom we would not interact on a daily basis.

The strategy works through questions to which participants answer them in workshops, meetings and groups. For instance, participants analyse and question the rumours that reach us, but mainly we ask ourselves: how does racism affect me, how does it affect you and how racism affects us as a community?

The project is being a very positive impact in all neighbourhoods, through the development of different initiatives that have promoted coexistence and boosted the global competence among the neighbours.