The #RavalKm0 project aims to create work opportunities for neighbourhood residents at risk of social exclusion, as well as promoting networking and communal work between local entities. The project has provided work for 14 people making cloth bags and Christmas lights for retail establishments and other places in the El Raval neighbourhood.

Some 15 neighbourhood entities in the El Raval neighbourhood have taken part in the roll out of the new #RavalKm0 project, an initiative aiming to create work opportunities for people at risk of social exclusion. As explained by Ignasi Sans, a specialist with the retail association Eix Comercial del Raval, the project aims to “highlight the practices of sustainability, local social awareness and local procurement, and that involves collaboration between various neighbourhood entities”.

The project came about via the Territori Socialment Responsible initiative and has been developed based on networking between different entities in the neighbourhood such as the Fundació Tot Raval and the Impulsem cooperative. The latter is one of the places where the 14 people taken on for the project made the cloth bags and Christmas lights for over 300 neighbourhood establishments linked to the Eix Comercial del Raval retail association.

The lights will be used to decorate shops and emblematic places in the neighbourhood and nearly 5,000 bags, made at entities such as Estel Tàpia and Dona Kolors will be given away by retailers to local residents when they do their Christmas shopping. The organisers of the #Ravalkm0 project are ambitious and would like to help the initiative grow with the aim of lighting up the whole neighbourhood.

A community festival on 3 December

The project concludes on 3 December with a community festival to include switching on the Christmas lights. The occasion is a chance to see the lights which were made and start the distribution of the bags. The festival is open to everyone and various recreational and musical activities will be laid on.