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Diversitours

Purpose:

Diversitours is a project to promote intercultural coexistence through urban tours that reflect the positive impact of cultural diversity in cities. Guided walks with an intercultural perspective were developed in the Els Orriols neighbourhood.

The aim is to perceive and experience the city's diversity through a visit to one of its neighbourhoods, Els Orriols, which has a significant present and history of migration and intercultural coexistence. It employs and encourages new narratives and attitudes about migration and cultural diversity in the city and allows us to discover how the different migratory processes, both national and foreign, have transformed the commercial fabric, the fabric of associations, the uses of public space and the places of worship present in the neighbourhood.

Sustainable and inclusive tourism could be a powerful way to safeguard citizens well-being during touristic routes, promote unknown areas and neighbourhoods, provide opportunities for employment of migrants, and promote intercultural interaction. These are some of the goals pursued by the cities of Bilbao and Valencia through “Diversitours”, a project awarded with an ICC intercity grant in 2021.

Stimulus/Rationale:

Inspired by the model of the European network MIGRANTOUR, Diversitours has been developed as a specific intercultural business model, consisting in educational and community-led guided walk that contribute to the generation of new narratives for the targeted neighbourhood, empowering the local community through co-creation and implementation, while dismantling negative perception and stereotypes about the territory and its residents.

Process:

In the course of the pilot project, the two participating cities have developed a methodology for intercultural visits, tours and interaction experiences.

As a first step, cities selected the area of intervention following a series of criteria (i.e. diverse areas with a deteriorated social image). The city should consider partnering with a social entity present in the area. The partner should be an organisation which is able to understand and address the needs of both the visitors and the locals, including the future intercultural guides who will run the Diversitours. Such an organisation should be capable of creating bridges across differences and limitations of all sides, though a proper understanding of the importance of intercultural communication. In the case of València, the entity was Valencia Acoge, an organisation with a long history in the Els Orriols neighbourhood, with projects and services linked to participation and intercultural coexistence, among others.

An exploratory study

The next step was to conduct an exploratory study of the Els Orriols neighbourhood. It was carried out by Albert Moncusí Ferré, from the University of Valencia, through the MIDICO research group (Migration, Diversity and Social Cohesion), which fed the narrative of the guided tour and facilitated the selection of elements of the neighbourhood that could be exhibited, considering the opinions of different agents in the neighbourhood.

A key step was to select and train the intercultural guides (around 40 hours were allocated). Last steps included the design of the intercultural route and its implementation.

Evaluation

Once the pilot visits of the Diversitours project were finished, the people who had participated in the activity carried out final evaluation questionnaires.

The total number of participants in the 4 visits was 82. The first two visits were attended by two schools (students of the higher degree of Social Integration at CIPFP Misericordia and students from the mediation team of the IES Joanot Martorell). The third visit was attended by technicians from municipal services in the neighbourhood and from organisations working in the field of migration in the city. The fourth and last visit was attended by representatives of organisations of the Local Immigration and Interculturality Council of Valencia City Council.

The average rating of the activity was 8.74 and the team of guides received a rating of 9.16.

Regarding the implementation of the activity in 2022-2023 through the school visits, 10 different education centres participated with a total of 270 students (High School, Secondary School, CEE and Popular University (adults).

161 final evaluation questionnaires were filled in by the classroom teachers in the Diversitours activity. The data obtained reveal:

  • Satisfaction with the activity and the content of it exceeds 80%.
  • The evaluation of the team of guides exceeds 80 %.

Given the very positive evaluation of the 2021 pilot project, Valencia relaunched this project in the 2022-23 academic year, as a socio-educational and community proposal for intercultural routes to show the richness and cultural diversity of the city of Valencia. The activity is also offered for the 23-24 academic course.

The project, promoted by the City Council and developed by Valencia Acoge, was made available to schools that can apply for it through the offer of educational projects in the city of Valencia, organised by the Department of Education. Diversitours will be available to secondary schools, high schools, vocational training centres and Popular University centres in the city.

Impact:

The pilot project evaluation suggested that the project contributed to the inclusive urban regeneration of the targeted neighbourhoods by valuing the local present and historical significance of the migrations and the cultural diversity in the participating cities. It has further contributed to the development of an intercultural narrative for the targeted neighbourhood, increasing residents’ sense of belonging and self-esteem.

Among the new lessons learned about the "Els Orriols" neighbourhood, the most important are its history, its diversity and cultures, the projects of the neighbourhood itself and the organisations and coexistence.

Key reference documents:

2017 - ongoing
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