Purpose:
As part of the actions of the Council of Social Welfare – Social Mediation and Intercultural Department, the city of Castelló de la Plana launched the “III Castelló Intercultural City Plan 2019-2023”, with a focus on the integration, mediation and conflict resolution as well as Anti-Rumours.
The structure of the III Castelló Intercultural City Plan is based on three fundamental pillars: the Strategy of Inclusion, Mediation and Multilevel Governance:
- INCLUSION STRATEGY. To provide an adequate response to the reception and social inclusion of people, as well as to detect and channel situations of discrimination, vulnerability and risk of exclusion in the processes of normalisation.
- 1: Reception and normalisation
- 2: inclusion of the Roma population.
- 3: Inclusion of persons with legal protection status.
- MEDIATION. Key methodology for the achievement of social cohesion prior to the consolidation of an Intercultural City of Castelló.
- 4: Preventive mediation.
- 5: Creative mediation
- 6: Transformative mediation
- MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE. To promote a new shared model of social, intercultural and institutional progress of the city by strengthening political, social and citizen co-responsibility towards a socially cohesive Castelló de la Plana.
- 7: Political leadership / technical/civic co-responsibility.
Stimulus/Rationale:
The Castelló de la Plana City Council is committed to interculturalism as a model for managing cultural diversity, using mediation as a tool, as can be seen in the two previous plans. The 3rd Plan, based on an interdisciplinary team, recognises and promotes professional mediation, intercultural education and the promotion of social skills for assertive and enriching communication.
In this respect, the Strategic Plan for Citizenship and Integration 2011-2014 established that "it is essential to define a strategy that helps to advance in the achievement of an inclusive society, in the resolution of the inevitable conflicts that coexistence generates and in the search for agreements and basic consensus”.
This progress, at the municipal level, is embodied in the Intercultural Coexistence Strategy, the aim of which is to develop the principle of transversality that inspires the current Plan. The Strategy for Intercultural Coexistence contains a set of measures, unanimously approved by the Municipal Forum for Intercultural Coexistence and agreed with Intercultural Coexistence and all the municipal departments departments.
Castelló supports mediation as a tool focusing on the positive transformation of the conflict, mediation as a preventive tool for conflicts and the creation of new forms of social intervention. The commitment to mediation was reinforced through the Castelló Intercultural City Plan in 2018, as the plan holds mediation, the inclusion strategy and multilevel governance as essential aspects.
The Plan forms the central axis om Mediation from three approaches: Preventive, Creative and Transformative. The programmes, projects, and actions designed to create progress towards an Intercultural Castelló, stem from the objectives formulated for each of these approaches. High impact projects worth highlighting are the Stop Rumours program (A.2) within Preventive Mediation, Innovation for the Intercultural Awareness within the Creative aspect, and the Municipal Mediation Service within the Transformative Mediation.
The city of Castelló has a team of nine intercultural mediators, reflecting the multicultural reality of the city, including mediators of the Roma community. In this way, the planning of the actions/programs is carried out taking different perspectives and experiences into consideration. The inclusion of culturally diverse municipal staff contributes to normalising their visibility both within the administration itself and in the population in general.
In the first two plans, the networking and synergies established with social, public and private entities, both at local and provincial levels, have social, public and private entities, at local, provincial, regional, state and supra-state levels, have been key to the fulfilment of the plans,
and private entities, at local, provincial, regional, state and supra-state level, have been key to the fulfilment of the objectives and, in turn, cause and consequence of the admission of Castelló de la Plana in the Spanish Network of Intercultural Cities (RECI) in 2014.
As the text mentions "Joining this initiative of the Council of Europe, in the framework of the Intercultural Cities project, allows us to maintain a work of search and constant improvement of formulas of social cohesion under the premises of learning, proposing, sharing and teaching with the rest of the RECI cities".
Social cohesion is precisely the mission of the 3rd Plan Castelló Intercultural City Plan, formulated as the current challenge in our journey towards the consolidation of an intercultural Castelló.
Process:
The III Plan has been drawn up by gathering contributions from the citizens of Castelló de la Plana, social agents, municipal departments and the Municipal Forum for Intercultural Social Coexistence, which were received by various means throughout the process. The draft of the 3rd Plan has been validated by Social Agents of the City (Associations, Foundations, NGOs, Religious Entities) and Municipal Council of Social Welfare.
Impact:
The evaluation of the 3rd Intercultural City of Castelló Plan will be implemented through a comprehensive approach articulated around three levels of analysis:
- Contextual level: referring to the citizens of Castelló de la Plana, with special attention to needs.
- Intervention level: focusing on the mission, objectives, instruments and results. objectives, instruments and results.
- Assessment level: articulated around the Quality Management System, understood as a commitment to the Management System, understood as a commitment to citizenship, and the Intercultural Cities Index, defined as a Intercultural Cities Index, defined as an instrument that evaluates and compares the progress of intercultural progress of the intercultural policies of RECI cities.
Key reference documents: III Intercultural Plan Castelló
