Barcelona City Council

Dear Sara,

As you know, because of your career in the area of community and intercultural intervention, along with your commitment to public service, one of our city’s most prized values is its diversity. Faced with waves of reactionary and regressive trends, our city must form a shield for people’s rights. The social advances that have been achieved thanks to great collective effort, as well as from institutions, will not allow us to take a step backwards. We will fight resolutely against the blight of racism and xenophobia.

It is therefore necessary to preserve our social, cultural and religious diversity. In our city model, people have guaranteed access to services, under equal conditions, so that they may carry out their life projects freely. We favour integrating policies where civic obligations are complied with and rights are guaranteed, with the aim of fostering community life, because we are all part of Barcelona.

For this reason, as Commissioner for Citizen Relations and Cultural and Religious Diversity, you should focus on the following priorities:

• Promoting the creation of a plan to combat racism and xenophobia. This must be cross-cutting and tackle areas such as employment, healthcare, education, culture and sport. This will be coordinated with all other City Council areas and all other public administrations.
• Ensuring the protection of migrants in the workplace. Attacks on workers’ rights in any sector are attacks on workers’ rights for the entire population. Together with the Catalan Government, necessary inspections must be reinforced, in order to avoid abuse and fraud in the workplace, and to ensure that workers’ rights are not infringed.
• Leading programmes to increase the participation of migrants in Barcelona’s civic life. It is important that anyone who lives in Barcelona also participates in Barcelona politically, so that we have a stronger democracy and a stronger society.
• Creating a programme to promote and support the organisations that bring migrant groups together to undertake socio-cultural and sports activities. This will foster contact between people and their surroundings. Working to facilitate the use of public spaces or facilities for meetings, festivals, reunions, etc.

I am convinced that your work as head of the Citizen Relations and Cultural and Religious Diversity Commission will help Barcelona to continue being a plural, welcoming city and a benchmark for civic and human values.

Kind regards,