Purpose:
To raise public awareness, prevent and address the formation of prejudices and stereotypes linked to migration and cultural diversity through creative writing.
Rationale:
This initiative is part of the city anti-Rumour strategy (ARS), launched in 2013. Indeed, the idea behind it is to involve the local community in the implementation of the ARS strategy. The Strategy is also part of the municipal commitment reflected in the III Intercultural City Plan.
In Bilbao, many people are fond of creative writing; this has been used to connect the interest of citizens with the ARS to raise awareness about diversity and coexistence.
Process:
An annual contest of short novels
The Council organises an annual contest to tell a story that promotes coexistence in diversity, that contributes to changing negative perceptions about migrants and that provides a new perspective.
The contest encourages to create new representations of migrants, to break the clichés to creatively rework them, subvert them, parody them. Thus, generating new narratives in the personal and collective imaginary about diversity, the sum of difference, the richness of sharing experiences and values.
The stories submitted to the competition must address the theme of the anti-Rumours project: coexistence, interculturality, diversity, the fight against racism, stereotypes, prejudice, rumours, identity, respect, dialogue, the advantages of diversity and its contributions.
The jury is made up of three members appointed by the Department of Equality, Cooperation and Coexistence.
The following criteria will be taken into account for the evaluation of the stories submitted to the competition:
- Appropriateness of the story to the subject matter of the competition.
- Literary criteria: originality, quality of prose, plot development, rhythm, treatment of the subject, etc.
The 1st Prize is € 350 and the publication of the story.
Seventy short novels are written per year to apply for the contest.
Impact:
The cooperation appears on the local level with local writers, professors and writing schools. The local observatory of Immigration also cooperates as well as local associations. The results showed that more people are now involved in the general antirumour Strategy taking part in other activities of the ARS project.
Since the contest started in 2017, 658 stories have been submitted and 6 publications have been produced with the winning and finalist stories. In addition, public readings of the stories are organised annually in different spaces to disseminate the stories and organise debates on the contents linked to the project.
Key reference documents: Publications
