Barcelona - Day 1

Arrived in Barcelona yesterday and was quickly introduced to Barcelona's most famous tourist detraction... pickpockets... in 3 seconds I was detracted and they were gone. Unfortunately for them they chose a South African to bully, so they had to saunter (yes saunter!) away empty handed. I always spread my important items throughout my luggage and booby trap them, so heh, they got nothing for their trouble and I got a few teaspoons of adrenaline coursing through my veins. Veins, I may add, that have up to now been saturated with the best cafe con leche's in the world. Man can these Spaniards make coffee!

I am situated in Barcelona 22@ and find the area very interesting. One can clearly see that the area used to be industrial and are now being revamped as we were told when Activa visited Cape Town in October. Unfortunately though, I am told that Spain suffered particularly badly in the financial crisis and here in 22@ in particular it is evident, as the property industry suffered the most.

Today I was hosted by an organisation called Trinijove (Trinitat + Youth). The director, Elizabeth Diaz introduced me to their programme and we went for a long walk through the neighbourhood. Trinitat is a very poor neighbourhood where unemployed is rife, drug dealing is commonplace, and a group of people live here at the terminal stages of AIDS (most infections here are from needle sharing). Motivation is low, education is poor and a number of gypsy families have illegally occupied buildings in the area. Most of their children either do not attend school at all, or attend erratically. Many of the youth are immigrants and although given residency permits - they are not given work permits!

Informally I picked up similar antagonistic views to "these foreigners who take our jobs"I was pleased to be able to look at the social services and support in this area. Trinijove supports the youth with training programmes like welding, cooking, cleaning and gardening. They help with placements and social reintegration. They also started a local radio station and have courses in social enterprise. Although I was not given specific statistics, they do anecdotally speak of successes in stimulating entrepreneurship. As in our own informal settlements, the initiatives remain small e.g. hiring oneself out as a painter, managing a group of ladies to clean houses or gardening.Trinijove gets half its funding from the government (and pays their students stipends akin to our learnership programmes) and supports itself with some income generating activities such as their successful recycling programme at the airport (employing mentally disabled staff)

The "La Caixa" (pron. kaiisha) "bank" was discussed, but I am still a little unsure how this differs from a "regular" bank.

That's me for now. Will blog tomorrow after meeting with Activa and a programme called "Fundacio Surt" dedicated to integrating vulnerable women into the economy.