Organizer: Fundació Pare Manel.

Collaborating institution: Ramon Molinas Foundation.

Implementation schedule: 29/07/2013 – 31/08/2013.

Casal Comedor Intercultural, a project that educates for coexistence, cultural diversity and social integration

The Casal Comedor Intercultural year after year is framed within the summer activities programmed by the Fundació Pere Manel. The program offers an educational provision for children and young ones at risk of social exclusion in the district of Nou Barris, in Barcelona, one of the city areas where this danger is higher.

The initiative, fully subsidized by Ramon Molinas Foundation in the 2013 edition, consists in offering to the participants a playful and educative alternative during July and August. The age of the users is between 3 and 16, and they are residents of the neighbourhoods of Verdum, Prosperitat, Roquetes and Turó de la Peira, areas where their inhabitants have many socioeconomic difficulties.

The family characteristics of the participants have low-incomes, insecurity at home, a low cultural level, and are in touch with delinquency and drugs, among others. With respect to the personal characteristics of the participants, due to the family ones, they are children or young ones with hygienic and feeding deficits, have a high degree of aggressiveness and unrest, and have a low cultural level due to a high school dropout rate.

The Casal Comedor Intercultural educates for coexistence, cultural diversity and social integration, and works on hygiene and feeding habits in a playful environment through different activities, such as workshops, crafts, games, theatre, music and excursions. The program consists of a team of volunteers from the Fundació Pare Manel.

The Fundació Pare Manel, an entity committed to social vulnerability

Created in 2004, the Fundació Pare Manel is a non-profit institution located in the district of Nou Barris in Barcelona that develops and leads community action and educative projects. The entity works with those people who are in a situation of high vulnerability.

Since its foundation, the Fundació Pare Manel has organized summer leisure activities. These activities also became a resource to facilitate the integration of the children of those families that arrive to Barcelona in this period and are not yet schooled. Besides the Casal Comedor Intercultural, the Fundació Pare Manel develops a summer house during July as well as campsites.

The main goal of the educational intervention of the Fundació Pare Manel is to develop support educational activities for children and young people at risk of social exclusion. These actions include the prevention of misconduct and bad attitudes, the offering of the necessary resources in order to palliate social exclusion, the empowerment of playful activities as a resource of socialization, or the offering of an alternative referent with a set of constructive values and attitudes.

Apart from the programmed activities for summer holidays, the entity offers a program to educate through sport, a program of comprehensive educational action for childhood and adolescence, a program of school support, a program of employment, and a program of support for prisoners.

The risk of social exclusion, accentuated in Nou Barris

Between the neighbourhood of Les Tres Torres, located in the district of Sarriá Sant Gervasi, and Roquetes, located in the one of Nou Barris, there is little more than a gap of eight kilometres. However, year after year the gap in the level of family income increases considerably. The district of Nou Barris is one of the most hit areas by the current economic context. A family from the neighbourhood of Roquetes, for example, disposes of a monthly income four times lower than one from Les Tres Torres, according to data from the City Council of Barcelona. Besides, if we compare these figures with the average ones of Barcelona, we will notice that the family income in Roquetes does not reach to 55% of the average.

The neighbourhoods of Verdum, Prosperitat and Turó de la Peira happen to be in the same situation. They are areas where children and young people suffer from serious problems of risk of social exclusion. Besides, in summer these difficulties are accentuated due to the lack of a defined school rhythm. Some of the children and adolescents are left unattended and have difficulties to satisfy the basic needs of feeding and hygiene. For this reason, Ramon Molinas Foundation thought convenient to subsidize the cost of the Casal Comedor Intercultural in the 2013 edition.

The 2013 edition of the Casal Comedor Intercultural, a success

In its 2013 edition, the Casal Comedor Intercultural has achieved in satisfying amply the expected results. Both the 146 children and young ones that participated in the summer house, and their families, evaluated the initiative in a positive and satisfactory way. The program worked from Monday to Friday from 10 in the morning until 5.30 in the afternoon, between July and August at the Antaviana school in the neighbourhood of Roquetes.

The initiative achieved to occupy the holidays of the participants with leisure time. Besides, it guaranteed two daily meals –lunch and tea time- to the 146 children and young ones who participated in the summer house. With respect to the leisure, the participants of the program enjoyed activities such as excursions to the beaches of Barcelona, municipal pools, museums, the aquarium or the zoo, among others.

Links of interest:

Fundació Pare Manel website.