The anti-rumours network established by Barcelona City Council in 2010 has been acclaimed as a good social practice by numerous international organizations since it was created. The idea is very simple: to provide the public with arguments to refute or counter the urban myths that circulate regarding immigration.
Immigrants get all the free school meals, they bring doctors' surgeries to a standstill, they are given all the available public housing, their shops and businesses open every day of the year, at all hours... The anti-rumours network uses objective data to fight against these stereotypes, and disseminates them through a network of activists. The network is made up of organizations and individuals who voluntarily receive information and pass it on. There are currently 114 of these organizations in Barcelona, ranging from neighbourhood residents' associations to parents in the city's schools.
This good practice has received European Union recognition. The Open Society, the group of foundations chaired by George Soros, which will be opening an office in Barcelona this year, with the Council of Europe and the "La Caixa" Foundation, will be financing a programme by the ACSAR foundation to extend this practice to four cities in the Spanish Network of Intercultural Cities, directed by the former commissioner for immigration of Barcelona City Council, Daniel de Torres.
The interdisciplinary research group on immigration at Pompeu Fabra University, led by Ricard Zapata, the former director of the Network of Cities, will evaluate the implementation of this programme. "There are many people interested in the strategy. We have also been asked for advice from Latin America on how it works," says De Torres, who joined the Council of Europe's team of advisers on interculturality after leaving the Council when the new government under Xavier Trias was established.
Other European cities have also expressed an interest in the strategy developed in Barcelona. Intercultural conflicts have increased sharply due to the economic crisis. Cities where cohabitation between different cultures is put to the test on a daily basis are particularly sensitive to this escalation. Helena Rojas is a Swedish citizen of Spanish origin who heads the integration policy area in Botkyrka, a city in the Stockholm metropolitan area, which is home to 87,000 people. 54% of its inhabitants or their parents were born abroad. Botkyrka has to manage an immigration situation that is much more complex because they are now dealing with the third generation, i.e. the grandchildren, who are still considered foreign citizens by most of society. According to Rojas, Botkyrka's social composition means, "it is a town where many public policy experiments on multiculturalism are carried out. In that respect, the Barcelona experience is particularly interesting for us, because innovative policies like the anti-rumours network have also been developed there." Rojas concludes, "to some extent, seeing that cities like Barcelona are able to successfully try out new formulas makes us think that we are not crazy or alone after all, so solutions can be found." Miquel Esteve, the Council's current commissioner for Immigration, stresses the importance of Barcelona being able to export social technologies.
For more information, please consult the anti rumours network webpage: http://www.bcnantirumors.cat/
News source: nouscatalans.cat