URGENT – Urban Regeneration: European Network of Towns 2016-2018
In today’s Europe, we are reaching alarming levels of urban fragmentation, inequality and structural socio-spatial divisions within our cities, feeding extremism and radicalization. Most vulnerable people are often bound to concentrate in disadvantaged areas where social exclusion and deprivation usually overlap with multi-ethnicity, which further challenges social cohesion.
Increasingly marginalized and stigmatized, these areas and their inhabitants are pushed into a vicious circle of poverty. In this context, and through a bottom-up approach to raising local awareness on the urgent need to establish new connections among inhabitants of marginalized neighborhoods and those of central areas, URGENT aims at tackling the growing fear of immigration, which feeds euroscepticist attitudes.
The main objectives of this project are:
- to create spaces of discussion and mutual learning among citizens from different socio-cultural backgrounds and from different countries of Europe;
- to foster active citizenship and co-creation of policies and services in local societies, particularly for citizens who are often excluded from the decision-making processes;
- to enhance the capacity of local institutions to be “multipliers” in their own communities in order to engage a wide range of stakeholders;
- to provide a new impetus to the EU enlargement process, contributing to the establishment of a long-lasting thematic network of cities that are strongly active and committed as key players in Europe.
In the context of this project, the INDERA Foundation organized the Seminar “Migrated Women, Constructors of Social Cohesion”, which was focused on social cohesion, integration, and diversity from the point of view of migrated women. In the Seminar different organizations, groups and unions participated, that serve the needs and interests of migrant women and work directly with them. In this opportunity, key articulating axes in the construction of citizenship have been prioritized: bodies, interpersonal relationships, and jobs.
