Rural Care, innovation in care for rural dependents 

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Rural Care, innovation in care for rural dependents 

Castilla y León Social Services, Junta de Castilla y León, Diputación provincial de Valladolid, Fundation Persones, Plena inclusión Castilla y León, European Social Network

An innovative project that offers social support, health care and opportunities for participation in the community to people with dependency, disability or chronic illness living in rural areas. It aims to enable people to remain at home with security, quality of life and dignity, maintaining their life project and daily routine. 

rural care asistencia mayores

In rural areas, which in recent years have been dominated by an ageing population, families, communities and volunteers play a crucial role in well-being. The Rural Care project stems from the desire to ensure active ageing around the home and is based on the premise that community participation is essential. This initiative is implemented in the province of Valladolid, in a rural context. Thus, this project, which is part of a European initiative for innovation in social services, is designed for people who are in situations of dependency and require constant support and care. 

In this sense, the aim is to guarantee the dignity of people, ensuring their autonomy and respecting their preferences and wishes. Rural Care also focuses on the families and carers of the project participants, providing them with support to reconcile care tasks with personal, social and working life, as well as to ensure their own health.  

This project stands out for its multi-level partnership of public and private actors, as well as for the coordination of social and health services at different levels. The Support Plan developed for each project participant includes different professionals: a coordinator, a case manager, a reference professional at home and in the community, among others. Among the support actions, it is worth highlighting that the home is also adapted and a personalised community participation programme is designed. In this sense, it is worth highlighting the fact that one of the project’s objectives is to dynamise the rural territory, local occupation, community involvement and social cohesion. 

SällBo, intergenerational and multicultural housing to combat loneliness

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SällBo, intergenerational and multicultural housing to combat loneliness

Helsingborgshem

SallBo Canasta 2 1

Multicultural and multigenerational residential space to combat loneliness and promote social cohesion between generations and cultures. The social housing and integration project provides incentives and areas for residents to interact socially and in company.

The SällBo building, designed by the municipal housing company Helsinborgshem, is intended for people over 70 and under 25. It aims to create a new way of living where the generations can meet within the social life of the center. Beyond that, it is also designed to bring cultures together and promote social cohesion: some of the young people living there are refugees who arrived in the country as unaccompanied minors. The primary objective of the project is none other than to break the involuntary loneliness in which these groups find themselves, especially the elderly and young people who are beginning their process of integration into the host society.

In order to access housing in this building, which is made up of 51 flats for rent, the cost of which is around €400, it is compulsory –and signed by contract– to socialise with other residents for at least two hours each week. Tenants are selected individually through interviews, always prioritising the diversity of profiles and origins.

Mixed Living, residents who live with and collaborate with highly vulnerable people

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Mixed Living, residents who live with and collaborate with highly vulnerable people

Tussenvoorziening

Mixed social housing blocks of flats where homeless and economically vulnerable people live together, which is beneficial for both groups. It facilitates access to housing more quickly for many people while the community activities carried out in the buildings promote social reintegration and break down the social isolation and stigmatisation of homeless people.

Mixed Living is a form of housing in which 70% of the people who live there are on low incomes and in need of social housing and the remaining 30% are people who are vulnerable, usually homeless people who are beneficiaries of the Housing First programme. Both parties must comply with the previously established conditions of commitment and rules, mainly regarding the care of the environment they share. Participating in this social accompaniment programme is advantageous for people in the first group, reducing their waiting time for access to social housing.

It is also clearly favourable for homeless people —and not only, because the programme is also aimed at people with a lack of social network or psychological problems— for whom the contact and cohabitation with other residents facilitates their social reintegration. In this sense, the shared housing enables proximity between the two groups with common meeting spaces that make it easier for them to have coffee, watch a football match or look after the courtyard. The project is supervised by professionals who visit the block of flats at least once a week and are responsible for assessing and managing the functioning of the cohabitation.

Fenix, a therapeutic garden and orchard for drug addicts

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Fenix, a therapeutic garden and orchard for drug addicts

Grup ABD

Through urban agro-ecology, the Fénix project in the city of Barcelona promotes the social and occupational inclusion of people undergoing treatment for drug addiction. The therapeutic garden and orchard, developed under the slogan “Cultivating new opportunities”, also contributes to destigmatising the group of people with addictions.

The project is located on the grounds of the Care and Monitoring Centre (CAS) in Sarrià (Barcelona), which has become a climatic refuge within the city. It has a total of 10 hectares and works by applying regenerative cultivation techniques, i.e. the approach to plant production is respectful, ecological and sustainable. The facility enables the personalisation of social insertion itineraries that improve the employability of the participants, who take part in the whole process, from the cultivation and maintenance of the plants to the organisation of the tasks and economic planning, in relation to the promotion and sale of the cultivated products. The participants receive basic training in agroecology and gain experience in social entrepreneurship and marketing of the products. The project also enables participants to be self-sufficient in food and promotes responsible consumption and a sustainable food system.

The project has a community aspect, with the garden being at the same time a space for exchange and use by organisations and people from the district who need to meet or carry out outdoor activities. In addition, the resulting food is destined to social services, so that people with addictions who participate in the Garden and Hort Fènix multiply the social impact they receive by helping other people.

Moods, promoting good screen use among teenagers and young people

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Moods, promoting good screen use among teenagers and young people

Nous Cims Foundation and Adsis Foundation

Community intervention project with a comprehensive approach to prevent risks in the use of new technologies among adolescents and young people and promote their proper use.


The Moods Project was born from the realisation that, in a modernity governed by social networks and mobile phones that change the way we live and relate to each other, new technologies pose new challenges and risks –such as addiction, pathological gambling, grooming, cyberbullying or social isolation– to be prevented. Specifically, it is aimed at adolescents and young people, as the name of the project indicates: mood is the English word that refers to the state of mind and is a colloquial expression widely used among young people.

The project is developed through a set of workshops and interventions that are carried out in secondary schools with the aim of promoting the good use of screens among students. It is well known that the use they make of social networks and new technologies is diverse and can have consequences on mental health. Through the workshops, participants reflect on and become aware of their use of screens. Thus, the project provides them with tools that allow them to identify risky and addictive behaviours. In addition, the workshops encourage critical thinking –allowing them to reflect on video games and online gambling, for example– and debate on the values that are transmitted through networks and on the need and importance of combining virtual leisure with live leisure. The project includes an impact evaluation plan that allows measuring and assessing the changes produced among participants through questionnaires.

The project has been implemented in the neighbourhood of Horta Guinardó, in Barcelona, and in Quatre Carreres, in Valencia, where a team of professionals has given workshops to young people aged between 12 and 16 in secondary schools in the neighbourhoods. Apart from workshops in secondary schools, the project also includes prevention workshops in leisure and free time organisations and training for families and teaching teams from the schools.

Résorption-bidonvilles, the digital platform to accelerate slum upgrading and integration in France

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Résorption-bidonvilles, the digital platform to accelerate slum upgrading and integration in France

Résorption-bidonvilles, Dihal (Interministerial Delegation of Acommodation and Access to Housing)

Information, exchange and management platform promoted by the French government to effectively accelerate the improvement and integration of slums, known in French as bidonvilles. Through this tool, citizens can report on the situation in these neighbourhoods, administrations can follow the progress of the actions being carried out and associations can collaborate in improving the living conditions of their inhabitants. 


This online platform –which is simple, agile and adaptable to the needs of each user– was born out of the realisation that in recent decades, in France, slums have reappeared, where precarious people live in housing that does not meet hygiene and sanitation standards and where basic services (access to water, access to sanitary facilities, waste disposal, etc.) are largely absent. There are currently more than 300 slums in the French Metropolitan Area, where more than 16,000 people live. The social marginalisation of the population living there is alarming: lack of schooling, non-participation in the labour market, neglect and discrimination of all kinds, among others.

The platform aims to transform public action and create a collaborative dynamic, connecting various actors –public administrations involved, landowners, associations that intervene with the inhabitants– that can help to improve precarious neighbourhoods, both at the level of decision-making and implementation. Access to the platform is open, but requests are validated by local administrators. Moreover, actors who have access to the platform can only consult information and report on interventions concerning the territory in which they are registered. Only users registered at the national level –ministries, central administrations or national associative partners– can consult all the data.

However, it is a tool with a global approach that combines social integration, respect for public order and the prevention of resettlement. In this sense, the platform makes the situation of the inhabitants of the bidonvilles visible –although no personal data is ever shared– and strengthens the power of action of each actor on the ground. It also makes it possible to draw up action plans and interventions, facilitate coordination between actors and measure and promote the results of the actions carried out.

Startblok, self-managed housing for local youth and young refugees

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Startblok, self-managed housing for local youth and young refugees

Woonstichting De Key, Ajuntament d’Amsterdam, Socius Wonen

An innovative model that addresses the housing needs of both young people and refugees. It promotes the integration of young people from different backgrounds who have the common goal of an affordable home. It offers them housing at an affordable price and with a secure rent, which allows young people, both locals and refugees, not to be expelled from the city and to be able to access a job or continue their studies.

Startblok Riekerhaven is aimed at Dutch people and refugees between 18 and 28 years of age who want to get actively involved socially. For a much lower price than the market price, Startblok offers self-contained temporary housing –with a kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet– which is variable in size –around 20 m²– and common areas for each residential group, equipped with a kitchen and a balcony. This space allows for the sharing of life experiences and knowledge, thus contributing to the creation of a community respectful of diversity and reinforcing social cohesion. Residents are selected on the basis of their vulnerability and willingness to be involved in the social and cultural aspects of the project and to commit themselves as a long-term member of the community. The maximum tenancy is five years and, when someone moves on, they are replaced by a new resident of a similar profile –gender, age and educational level– to maintain the balance and diversity of the project.

At Startblok, equal and respectful treatment of all residents is key, as well as the coexistence of very different cultures, languages, customs and ways of doing things. The community functions through the self-management and self-organisation of the residents themselves, with spaces to elaborate and implement their initiatives, both for the formation of community and social cohesion and for the day-to-day maintenance of the model, such as the selection of new tenants and the management of applications. It is this way that a comfortable and pleasant living environment is created, where everyone feels welcome, valued and supported; in short, a home. This housing model thus makes it easier for refugees –who have just arrived in a new country– to build friendships and contacts and to rebuild their lives. It is thus an innovative example of how to address the needs of refugees in a positive way, while providing much-needed affordable housing for young people.

Persianes amb ànima, an art project that empowers women and neighbourhoods

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Persianes amb ànima, an art project that empowers women and neighbourhoods

Grup Atra

A community project of artistic creation that promotes social and laboral inclusion for women who are vulnerable or at risk of social exclusion. It is a transformative project, based on urban art as an engine of change and social awareness, which builds community and allows the discovery and modification of the environment.

Persianes amb ànima –in English, shutters with a soul– is based on a series of workshops on the restoration, design and painting of shutters taught by professional illustrators and muralists. The project covers the whole process: after an initial theoretical and practical part to introduce participants to the artistic discipline, they carry out a final practice on the shutters of shops in the neighbourhood. Apart from being a collective learning space, one of the objectives of the project is to create safe and comfortable spaces for the participants. In this way, Persianes amb ànims aims for art to be, apart from a distraction, a source of increased security and self-confidence.

During the implementation, an important part of the project is the participatory process that takes place between artists, students and the people in charge of the shops. It is in collaboration with the neighbourhood and the neighbourhood associations that the shutters to be rehabilitated are selected. Once they have been chosen, the task is to jointly decide on the messages that the shutters will communicate, understood and used as a loudspeaker to educate and raise awareness about equality, social inclusion, feminism and sustainability. Also during this process, the stories of the neighbourhood’s small businesses are discovered –which allows neighbourhood ties to be forged– and these stories are then captured in the drawings on the shutters. Thus, Persianes amb ànima highlights the potential of art as a tool for social inclusion and a space for female empowerment, capable of making visible what is not visible.

Memory Center Platform, an interactive platform that brings the experiences of migrants closer together

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Memory Center Platform, an interactive platform that brings the experiences of migrants closer together

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, SO-CLOSE Consortium

Multimodal and multilingual digital platform that collects heritages, testimonies, experiences and narratives around the phenomena of displacement and forced migration in order to help build complex identities and foster social cohesion between refugees and European host societies.

It harnesses the benefits of innovative digital and artistic tools to facilitate cultural exchange, storing and managing a wide range of content (documents, videos, images, texts). It is available in 6 languages (English, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Greek and Polish) and is accessible to institutions, academics, artists and the general public.

This software platform represents the final archive of all the content produced throughout the life of the So-Close project, so of cultural heritage on refugees and migrants. In fact, it is the culmination of the project: it stores and makes it possible to search, view, share, download and aggregate the materials created. Thus, the MCP contains digital maps, virtual exhibitions that allow the sharing of tangible and intangible elements of the countries of origin and host countries, and interactive and immersive video documentaries. In this sense, the MCP interacts with the three digital tools created during the project –Storymap, Webdoc and Exhibition– with the aim of sharing and pooling cultural heritage. Apart from preserving and gathering all these generated contents, it also connects them with similar initiatives thanks to the social network tracker and allows the user to be a co-creator of new cultural materials.

In addition, this platform provides a number of basic accessibility functions –such as font size modification or font adaptation for people with dyslexia, among others– for people with functional diversity. These functions can be easily activated by users.

Concilia, a public service to support the reconciliation of work, family and personal life for people with limited resources

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Concilia, a public service to support the reconciliation of work, family and personal life for people with limited resources

Barcelona City Council

Free municipal babysitting service for single-parent families with few resources, women victims of gender violence and families with no community network, so that they can combine the care and education of children with work, family and personal obligations.



This service is currently extended to 12 neighborhoods in the city of Barcelona, and operates 7 days a week outside school hours. It has teams of educators, who can work with a maximum of 8 children, and are in charge of attending families, as well as programming and dynamizing the activities that are carried out. This public service can be requested from 2 weeks in advance up to 12 hours in advance, with the exception of emergency cases in which it can be requested up to 30 minutes in advance.


The service works with 2 main objectives: on the one hand, it is a support to the work and personal balance of families with difficulties, which facilitates the training of mothers and fathers, their incorporation into the working world, their involvement in the neighborhood, and even being able to enjoy occasional moments of rest. On the other hand, it is also aimed at offering children quality leisure time, with activities and pedagogical dynamics adapted to different ages and needs.

Children between 1 and 12 years old can enjoy the service on an occasional or more regular basis, and basic, ludicosocial and educational attention is guaranteed through values such as participation, environmental and emotional education, interculturality and art.