Among the many impossibles made possible by this quarrelsome group of neighbors over the past 20 years, Lourdes Poncepresident of the tribe, highlights the ‘United by the flow’, an album recorded together by Ñetas and Latin Kings in 2008, after laborious community work. “There had come a time when the criminalizing message of the televisions was such that the women of the neighborhood were sitting on a bench, they saw a boy arrive with his cap and his pants down and they left terrified; they felt real panic without the boys having ever done anything to them, just seeing them,” he says. It was in the mid-2000s and 9 Barris Acull He had only a few years to live, but his reason for existence was very clear: precisely to avoid this type of situation. Parallel to this breeding ground, there was the case that the young people linked to the Latin Kings they had approached Kasal de Joves de Roquetes and the Ñetas to of prosperity, so, As is tradition in the district, they thought about how to work as a network from the two sister spaces.
“Actually, you talked to the neighbors and the fact that the young people from rockets they will fight with those of the prosperity It had always happened, it was nothing new, why, then, did we stigmatize those kids?” reflects Lourdes, whose objective is always to demonstrate (rightly) that “we are more alike than different“. Remember also the impressive concert they organized in the tracks of Via Favència. “We had everything organized so that they would not cross paths. First one acted and then the other to avoid any conflict, but in the end they ended up on stage together singing a song. It was spectacular”, she continues excitedly, also remembering the pact they had with the Mossos d’Esquadra: they asked them, please, not to come near there.
Fairly more recent, in 2018, 9 Barris Acull again played a key role in the conflict management triggered after the announcement of the opening of a mosque in Japó street. For a year, the community linked to the mosque suffered insults, Islamophobic graffiti and daily casseroles stirred up by extreme right-wing groups, and the neighborhood fabric of the district, organized around 9 Barris Acullshattered the cliché that the working class is reactionary, clothed the mosque and not only made it easier to open but it convinced the undecided that far from causing problems, it benefited the neighborhood.
The war for scholarships
These are just two of the hundreds of episodes lived in these two decades of networking “to promote coexistence and facilitate the incorporation into the neighborhoods of the neighbors who come from immigration”, how they are presented Another moment that Lourdes remember very well it was the fight for scholarships. “During the hardest time of the crisis, the Generalitat cut the scholarships and there came a time when families who until then had a scholarship were taken away, and a story was generated that it was the fault of the new neighbors, who took away scholarships. We did a lot of pedagogy to make them understand that the problem was that the Government had cut scholarships and that it was them who we had to point to, not our impoverished neighbors”, she explains energetically Lourdes.
The association, which offers regularly and free language workshops and knowledge of the environmentan legal support service and a reception and information point, it works thanks to the strength of volunteering, which contributes 40% of the hours. “Workers we have only three, and next month we can no longer pay their payroll,” says the combative president of the concerned entity.
complicated anniversary
The Barcelona City Council has pushed back the agreement, which they have been extending for decades. “Now they look at everything with a magnifying glass before signing anything. For the subsidies they ask us to have 50% of our own resources and that for us is unfeasible. Here all the services we offer are free, that is our essence!”, summarizes Ro Cuevas, coordinator of the entity. While the subsidy arrives -which sooner or later has to arrive since their work for the community is, in addition to undeniable, irreproachable-, they plan to pay the 2,400 euros for the payroll to the neckline, with a collection, following his maxim of never leaving anyone behind.
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Its only (and almost symbolic) own source of income is the ‘merchandising’ of its star activity, the Sopes del Món Festival, whose idea the long-awaited Rafa Juncadella brought from France. “At first, each participant brought their soup, but starting in 2008, when with the crisis several people told us that they couldn’t participate because they didn’t have enough to fill the pot, we decided that after 20 liters, the entity would pay for the ingredients. up to 50 euros“, points Carmen Alvarez, coordination support technique. They rent the stoves and the participants cook there, in the Via Julia.
“Watching us cook is another way of seeing that we are more alike than different“, Lourdes insists. All over the world a soup needs water and fire. Right now they are going for 60 soups each edition. “We have had from a Belgian soup cooked by a woman from here who migrated many years to Belgium, or one from Romania presented by the neighborhood association of the prosperproposed by a member who came from there, but elaborated among all“, they conclude proudly.