MARES MADRID
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
MARES project developed four spaces called M.A.R.E.S. M (movility), A (food), R (recycling), E (energy) and S (social and care economy, common to the four MAR) in four vulnerable districts in Madrid. These MARES will become a prototype of urban resilience on employment by encouraging social and solidarity economy on these strategic sectors, by recovering abandoned or disused common areas and making them available for the creation of new productive initiatives.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Other Funds
Urban Innovative Actions
https://www.uia-initiative.eu/en/uia-cities/madrid
Description of the project
Summary
Since 2008, economic crisis impact in Madrid has produced several mutations. Social polarisation and spatial segregation dynamics have escalated, strengthening even more the income barrier between the north (exclusive urban services) and the south/ southeast (negative externalities concentration). MARES project will initiate an urban and economic resilience strategy on employment through social and solidarity economy in key industries to move forward a new model of productive matrix of the city. Thus, a comprehensive approach of actions will be deployed, based on four pillars:
Activating recovery processes, prototyping and co-designing disused public spaces.
Launching a competencies lab capable of promoting economic resilience strategies of civil society.
Fostering territorial economic innovation processes which generate a new economic fabric
Encouraging mechanisms for awarenessraising, territorial economic revitalisation and cooperation among agents in order to articulate ecosystems.
Key objectives for sustainability
MARES is deployed in 4 districts of Madrid: Villaverde, Vicálvaro, Puente de Vallecas and Centro. The project is developed around urban and economic resilience, i.e. the capacity of people, technologies and ecosystems to adapt to unforeseen situations. Translated into the city of Madrid, this capacity refers to the numerous experiences that citizens have developed to cope with the crisis: self-employment initiatives, recovery of disused spaces or economic or mutual support networks. Thus, among the central objectives of MARES is the creation of businesses, the generation of productive and community fabric and the promotion of good citizen and institutional practices that lead to a much more sustainable, healthy and cooperative city.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Food Mar
Located at Villaverde district, this is a municipal building where economic projects linked to different parts of the agri-food chain will be supported and promoted. It also aims to become a laboratory for experimentation of artisanal and creative initiatives for a gastronomy linked to the territory and sustainability.
Energy Mar
The neighborhood of La Latina hosts the space dedicated to Energy, in the building of La Paloma in the Centre district. The space will be open to business projects dedicated to energy saving and clean energy from the values of social economy. In it, neighbors will be able to find individual solutions, but also collective projects, and a place for meeting and debate, which will help to make Madrid the epicenter of citizen energy transformation.
Mobility Mar
At Vallecas street you can find the space dedicated to the Mobility, which will be a place focused on collaboration and creation of innovative fabric in the mobility sector. There will coexist business projects based on social and solidarity economy, and ideas that citizens want to develop transforming them into concrete projects.
Recycling Mar
A site at Villaverde, will house the Recycling Mar in the district of Vicálvaro. It will be built in a space that will support companies and business initiatives, aligned with the values of the social economy, which develop productive activities and projects in the recycling sector. El Mar aims to make neighbors the protagonists of the space and the activities, supporting them in the development of collective initiatives and projects linked to the recycling culture.
Care Mar
This Mar does not have its own place but will be present in all the other spaces, in a transversal way. Thus, all MARES spaces will be "spaces of care", free of sexist violence, where an inclusive language is used in the signage, where symbolic barriers are avoided, so that the different groups of the population can feel identified with the project.
Key objectives for inclusion
Several project of inclusion has been developed in each of five sectors of Mares, fostering territorial economic innovation processes which generate a new economic fabric through social economy formulas and improve the competitiveness and sustainability of the existing productive schemes in the city and also encouraging mechanisms for awarenessraising, territorial economic revitalisation and cooperation among agents in order to articulate ecosystems allowing production diversification and more collective possibilities on employment and employability at local level.
Here some examples (spanish language)
https://maresmadrid.es/actualidad/huertos-inclusivos-comunitarios-manual/
https://maresmadrid.es/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/manual_huertos_MARES_v3.pdf
https://maresmadrid.es/evento/reunion-del-grupo-de-trabajo-inclusion-y-diversidad/
https://maresmadrid.es/evento/empresa-de-insercion-instrumento-eficaz-para-la-inclusion-social/
Results in relation to category
The Madrid MARES project, developed within the European initiative Urban Innovative Actions, has been implemented over three years (between November 1, 2016 and October 31, 2019).
This means more than 1,000 days of work carried out by a team coordinated by the Madrid City Council and belonging to eight entities of the social and solidarity economy: Dinamia, Grupo Cooperativo Tangente, Estudio SIC, Vivero de Iniciativas Ciudadanas, Ecooo, Todo por la Praxis, Agencia para el Empleo and Acción contra el hambre. Its surname (resilient urban ecosystems for a sustainable economy) points to its ambitious goal: to transform the city of Madrid through the social and solidarity economy. To this end, five economic sectors were prioritized, which make up the acronym MARES (mobility, food, recycling, energy and care) in four districts (Puente de Vallecas, Villaverde, Vicálvaro and Centro). In these districts, we have worked hand in hand with key agents and recovered three disused public spaces, creating the first circular economy center and the first incubator kitchen in the Community of Madrid.
In the short term, MARES sought to generate new sustainable and quality productive fabric. And it has succeeded. Thanks to the specialized support services (called specific services), 48 new productive entities have been created, most of them under social and solidarity economy formulas. In addition, more than 300 economic initiatives have benefited from the project's proposals and have actively participated in its ecosystem. Of these, 91 have been incubated in the spaces.
Major changes take time. For this reason, part of MARES' activities have been aimed at raising awareness among Madrid's neighbors about the need to apply more sustainable and viable production models to current urban challenges. More than 13,000 people have participated in nearly 1,000 training events, both sectoral and general, dynamization and awareness-raising, including the sessions of the more than 40 CAPS
How Citizens benefit
559 new economic initiatives has been constituted in the mares Ecosystem.
48 new companies created
332 companies accompanied
91 incubations in our spaces
13.300 people have assisted to the proposed activities
770 event organized
133.200 visits to the www.maresmadrid.es web
11.5000 social media followers
6.000.000 visualizations/ impressions in social media
35.000 downloads from the web
Innovative character
MARES is an innovative pilot project for urban transformation through social and solidarity economy initiatives, the creation of local and quality employment and the promotion of another model of city.
MARES intervenes in 4 districts of Madrid: Villaverde, Vicálvaro, Puente de Vallecas and Centro. The project is developed around urban and economic resilience, i.e. the capacity of people, technologies and ecosystems to adapt to unforeseen situations. Applied to the city of Madrid, this capacity refers to the numerous experiences that citizens have developed to cope with the crisis: self-employment initiatives, recovery of disused spaces or economic or mutual support networks. Thus, among the central objectives of MARES is the creation of enterprises, the generation of productive and community fabric and the promotion of good citizen and institutional practices that lead to a much more sustainable, healthy and cooperative city.
To this end, it focuses on five different sectors in four districts of the city of Madrid: mobility in Vallecas, food in Villaverde, recycling in Vicálvaro, and energy in Centro. The fifth sector, which cuts across all the districts, is the care sector, which, like the social and solidarity economy, puts the maintenance and sustainability of life at the center. In each of the four districts there is a space dedicated to the project, called MAR, which serves as a knowledge laboratory and will house these new productive initiatives. These are buildings and public spaces that were in disuse, and have been enabled and made available to the public.
MARES is not only an employment and social economy project, but also a proposal for urban transformation through the social economy. The companies that come out of MARES will have urban impact, promoting a more sustainable, low-emission, inclusive city. In short, a city for all people.
