Migrant women, coordinated by a group of experts and artists, will participate in workshops and co-creation activities related to the participants’ personal histories and their connection with Barcelona’s cultural heritage. The pilot will adopt a gender perspective, with the aim of increasing visibility of the group of participants and empowering them. The pilot will be implemented in collaboration with laBonne, a cultural centre dedicated to women, located in Ciutat Vella. The activities will be carried out, all considering culture as a driver for human and social development, creating reports, policies, stories and cultural projects to inform the community, academia and government.
The community
Migrant Women resident in Barcelona constitute an invisible community in the framework of local cultural policies.
- Barcelona, a city of more than 1.6 million inhabitants, of which 103,429 live in Ciutat Vella.
- According to official statistics of Idescat (Statistical Institute of Catalonia) the percentage of foreign residents in Ciutat Vella’s is 48.26% of the total population. The main nationalities of the foreigners inhabiting the district are Pakistan, Italy, Philippines, Morocco and France.
- Migrant women represent the 48.4% of the total migrant population.
The challenge
- Migrant and refugee women are more exposed to risks, exploitation and violence because they are largely young, single and poor.
- Living in another country can create a condition of isolation and a situation of discrimination causing greater vulnerability.
- Often, migrant and refugee women are also victims of structural violence, occupying the lowest socioeconomic positions due to the negative effect of the intersection between gender, origin, social class and administrative situation.
- In addition to this complex situation, they suffer discriminations relating to religious interpretation, cultural practices, beliefs and sexist attitudes.
- Their level of engagement in local cultural life is still quite low.
What kind of actions?
- Cultural and social situation analysis: Using the adapted benchmarking tool, the target group of migrant women will be asked to participate in a survey to analyse the extent to which they participate in the cultural life of the city.
- Training activities and empowerment: The beneficiaries and the stakeholders will be asked to participate in some workshops. Migrant women will be trained on digital storytelling tools, coordinated by the experts. All participants will work together towards the production of stories related to local heritage, based on migrant women’s memories and experiences.
- Cultural and artistic co-creation: Five workshops will take place with artists and experts in different locationsto produce artistic outputs, in which migrant women stories are used as a vehicle for their own sense of cultural belonging and awareness of the local cultural heritage.
- Getting familiar with the tool: The women will be helped to include cultural data in the app to: test the usability, evaluate their understanding of the app and if it answers to specific needs.
- Social partnership & Audience Development: A multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral community will be created to support the project and its evolution.
Memex project started in 2019 and will run until 2022.
