Joan Subirats, Director of Government andPublic Policies and Governance irector IGOP) of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and Fernando Fantova have participated today in the Seminar “Bizilagun Sarea”, promoted by the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa in the framework of the Etorkizuna Eraikiz program.
In order to face a society that values the lack of ties and links and the power of competitiveness, the community can position itself as an actor of protection due to its capacity of self-organization. According to the experts, protection can not only come from the state or the market, there is a third actor, the community, who may have a role in this area. Both Subirats and Fantova agree on the need to strengthen community practices, proximity practices, in response to the weakness of public policies which have become obsolete.
During the session Bzilagun sarea (a network to detect vulnerability cases in the local context) was presented as well as some good practices of communities experiences as the following:
Proyecto Izeba, project to protect children in care, Baketik Foundation
Proyecto Radar, project to combat social exclusion of elderly people. Barcelona Council
Proyecto Rossinyol, project on inclusive mentoring. University of Girona
Programa Etorkizuna Eraikiz
The Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa launched in 2016 the Etorkizuna Eraikiz, a collective process of analysis and promotion of Gipuzkoa as an intelligent, competitive, sustainable, cohesive and fair territory. The project is built on two main pillars: on the one hand, GipuzkoaLab, which aims to launch pilot projects on relevant issues from the economic, social and cultural perspective, to evaluate these trials and to incorporate the most successful ones into public policies . The second pillar is called Gipuzkoa Taldean, and its goal is to create the Strategic Plan Gipuzkoa 2026 in collaboration with the organized society of the territory.