COMMUNITY REVITALISATION

We understand social inclusion to be a process that entails a change, which affects the life of the person suffering from social exclusion or at a social disadvantage, and those people forming part of the social group rom which that person has been excluded and, in particular, the relationship established between both parties.

Bearing this perspective in mind, inclusion can be conceived to have two fundamental variables:

• Individual autonomy: understood to be the possibility of a person to decide for him or herself. We consider that, to do so, he or she must have sufficient resources and skills that make it possible to have a minimally satisfactory set of vital daily practices and experiences that allow that person to have a reasonable level of self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Social Participation: involving participation with full rights in any social area and, above all, from our point of view, having a certain number of social relations in various scenarios, in order to make that person feel part of the community, in addition to knowledge and acceptance of the basic cultural practices and norms of the community in which he or she is being included.

From this point of view, our activities aim to cover both levels:

1. Working on personal aspects,yet without forgetting the importance of the local environment or falling into the temptation of making the victim the culprit (as if everything would be resolved by changing his or her personal aspects).
2. Intervening in the community in order to try to change the social situations affecting the individual inclusion process, yet without forgetting that, until we achieve this change, we need to offer the person tools that will allow for improvements of his or her situation in the short / medium term.

Our intervention is therefore a blend of the two conceptualizations put forward by Guy Cauquil. Depending on the approach given to the intervention, we can have one of two models: the inclusion model and the model based on the fight against exclusion. The key elements of these two models are shown below:

Based on this logic, our intervention alternates between the “Inclusion” model and the “Fight against Exclusion” model, depending on the possibilities, opportunities and suitability of the action for the desired end:

• We work with the INCLUSION logic cwhen intervening for the purpose of increasing the level of personal and professional skills, where we are seeking normalisation through inclusion in the labour market.
• We use the FIGHT AGAINST EXCLUSION logic when developing plans which aim to achieve some type of social impact that favours:
  • when developing plans which aim to achieve some type of social impact that favours:
  • improved co-ordination and comprehensiveness of the various intervention instruments existing in a specific territory, overcoming the current prevailing trend of departmental divisions and watertight professional compartments.
  • the implementation of proposals that, adopted as a group, promote greater participation and collective ownership of welfare and social cohesion in the areas of co-existence.