The Department of Social Welfare, Equality and Immigration of the Arrecife City Council, directed by Maite Corujo, will shortly begin the project, with a participatory approach, Improving access for migrants and their groups to public resources and services, presented this Tuesday at the El Zaguán Citizen Participation Center and which will ultimately aim to produce a guide for welcoming migrants in Arrecife.
Driven by Alianza por la Solidaridad with funding from the General Directorate of Social Rights and Immigration of the Government of the Canary Islands, the development of the project will have the collaboration of Tágora, Estudios e Intervención and will integrate the voices and experiences of those who face firsthand the barriers to access community services. It will also be open to the collaboration of social groups and citizens in general.
After thanking Alianza por la Solidaridad for the choice of Arrecife -along with Santa Lucía de Tirajana in Gran Canaria, the only two Canary Islands municipalities where the project will be carried out- Maite Corujo highlighted that this guide “will constitute an important tool for coexistence to facilitate access to public services and resources for migrants from an inclusive perspective and with a gender approach, as well as knowledge of their rights and regulations”. In addition, the preparation of this guide “aims to be a meeting point to forge local alliances and strengthen the community network around welcoming and coexistence”, she highlighted.
Choice of Arrecife
For her part, the delegate of Alianza por la Solidaridad in the Canary Islands, Irene Bello, expressed her satisfaction at “carrying out this project, hand in hand with the Arrecife City Council with the support of the Canary Islands Government, which will allow us to work with migrants who are part of our citizenship”. She added that the choice of Arrecife to develop it “has been based on the proven track record of the capital of Lanzarote in the care of migrants in coordination with social groups and other public administrations”.
The project technician from Tágora, Estudios e Intervención social also intervened, who agreed to highlight, as did Maite Corujo and Irene Bello, that the project development process will include “a specific session with migrant women so that they can tell their experiences, needs and proposals that contribute to building this guide based on the experience of those who will use it, and which will have to be useful and adapted to the reality of Arrecife”.
As explained in the project presentation, its elaboration process will take as a starting point identifying the barriers that migrants encounter when accessing services and rights, and based on their experiences, needs and contributions, generating strategies and content for the guide, in order to make it as accessible and adapted to their realities as possible. Citizens and groups interested in participating in the project can contact the mobile phone number 653 25 42 41.