Purpose: This initiative aims to celebrate the local diversity by showcasing the diverse interactions in the City.
Stimulus/Rationale: Cascais is now a municipality of the world, with according to data from 2020 more than 21,000 residents from 120 nationalities and five continents who chose to live there, where the number of foreign residents exceeds the national average (7%) and is also above the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon (3%) .
Some statistics which have been collected and support the message of the new website include:
- 26% of residents say they have four or more friends of another nationality
- the proportion of marriages between Portuguese and foreigners is 25.5%
- 10% of residents, more than 20,000 residents, are foreigners
- 43.1 of the citizens think that immigrants are integrated, from a social and economic point of view
- for 51.8% of the citizens, is it an asset to have immigrants living in the municipality
Its origin is very varied and illustrates well the great cultural diversity that currently exists in the county.
The Brazilians prominently form the most numerous community and soon after come the Europeans with British, Italians, French and Romanians at the head.
According to the latest available data, the Cape Verdean and Chinese communities are tied for seventh place, with the same number of residents.
26% of residents claim to have 4 or more friends of different nationalities, a percentage that confirms the long tradition that exists in the county of welcoming those who come from outside.
Process: The Municipality of Cascais, Portugal has created a webpage to share the stories of persons with migrant backgrounds who are residing in the city. Any group of two or more persons where one of the participants is born in Cascais and the other person is not can share their stories on the website. There, they can tell the story of how they arrived in Cascais, how they met the other person in the presentation, about their lives and how the interaction in their city. The storytelling is done in text with supporting images.
Impact: 12 stories of intercultural relationships were shared on the website so far, engaging 24 people. One video was produced and has reached around 2 thousand views.
Key reference documents:
The website communication uses the hashtag #encontraomundoemcascais
