On February 20th, we gathered in the municipality of Sant Feliu de Codines to hold the Dialogue for Inclusion, a meeting organised within the framework of the project Tàndem Migro-Ambiental – Towards an Inclusive Europe. The aim was to bring together young people from diverse backgrounds, organisations working in the fields of cooperation, equality, and culture, as well as representatives of the local administration and elected officials from the Sant Feliu de Codines City Council.
This initiative sought to create a space for active participation where all attendees could listen to one another, understand different realities, and collectively develop proposals to move towards a more inclusive municipality.
Project Presentation and Network Building
The organising entities, CEHDA and AHEAD, opened the session with a detailed presentation of the project, outlining its origins, objectives, and main lines of action. Emphasis was placed on both the Catalan dimension of the initiative (highlighting the territorial and community work being carried out) and its European scope, aimed at generating collaboration networks, exchanging good practices, and influencing public policies in the areas of inclusion and youth participation. This initial contextualisation helped participants understand the overall framework of the project and the relevance of the meeting within a broader strategic approach.
The Dialogue for Inclusion marked the culmination of a participatory process that began with two prior meetings: one session with representatives of the public administration and another with young people from diverse backgrounds and local organisations. These sessions identified the main challenges to inclusion in Sant Feliu de Codines, bringing together needs, concerns, and opportunities for improvement, and creating a shared working basis that guided the development of the final dialogue.
During the meeting, the ideas, reflections, and concerns gathered in the previous sessions were presented back to the participants, ensuring continuity in the process and coherence in the work carried out. From this point, participants were invited to organise themselves into working groups to explore the prioritized topics in depth and to formulate concrete proposals for action at the local level.
Prior to this, a round of introductions was held among the participants and the represented organisations. Each contribution served to share backgrounds, areas of work, and motivations for taking part in the Dialogue for Inclusion. This space fostered an atmosphere of closeness and trust, facilitating mutual understanding and highlighting the diversity of experiences present. At the same time, it became an opportunity to identify shared interests and potential avenues for collaboration, helping to build new alliances between local organisations that may not previously have had the chance to meet or work together.
Mapatge d’entitats i enfortiment del teixit associatiu
With the aim of strengthening networking, the project also includes the creation of a Mapping of Catalonia that gathers all the organisations participating in the project. This tool not only provides a clear and structured visualisation of the associative landscape involved, but also facilitates interconnection between organisations, promoting direct contact and the exchange of resources, experiences, and good practices.
The mapping is designed as a living and dynamic instrument, intended to foster new synergies across the territory and consolidate strategic alliances among diverse actors. In this way, it becomes a practical tool to strengthen cooperation, optimise efforts, and increase the visibility of the collective work being carried out in support of inclusion and social cohesion.
Key Challenges Identified
The Dialogue highlighted the key challenges to making Sant Feliu de Codines a more inclusive municipality. In summary, the main points that emerged were:
- Difficulties practicing Catalan in informal spaces and the tendency to switch languages automatically. Proposed actions: Promote language exchange partnerships, create more informal spaces for practice, and encourage the use of Catalan in everyday interactions.
- Insufficient public transport connections limiting young people’s access to education and employment. Proposed actions: Maintain or expand transport subsidies and communicate improvement needs to regional or supra-municipal authorities.
- Low participation of young people and people from diverse backgrounds in local organisations, linked to rigid participation models and a lack of generational renewal, which hinder more diverse and sustained engagement. Proposed actions: Review and make participation models more flexible, increase visibility of local organisations, and promote joint activities with the Youth Space.
- Segregation of community spaces, which limits interaction between different groups. Proposed actions: Involve users in defining space usage, create a users’ committee for the Youth Space, and strengthen coordination among organisations.
- Limited inclusion of families and women from diverse backgrounds due to linguistic, cultural, and social barriers, restricting their active participation in educational and community spaces. Proposed actions: Conduct a diagnostic on education and inclusion, promote a pact against segregation, and create specific listening spaces while strengthening welcoming initiatives.
Towards a More Inclusive Municipality
The Dialogue for Inclusion in Sant Feliu de Codines highlighted the power of collective participation and the need to build bridges between young people, organisations, and institutions. The proposals and reflections that emerged during the meeting serve as a roadmap for continuing to advance towards a more inclusive municipality, where diversity is seen as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.
This experience confirms that networking, active listening, and collaboration among diverse actors are key to generating sustainable change, and it opens the door to new initiatives that continue to make Sant Feliu de Codines an example of cohesion, dialogue, and community inclusion.
This activity has been developed in the frames of the Youth Participation Activity project Towards Inclusive Europe - Cap a l'Europa Inclusiva, supported by the Erasmus+ programme co-funded by the European Union and Coordinated by AHEAD.
Find further information about the project in: https://aheadedu.org/en/projects/towards-inclusive-europe/
The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.