In our model of society, equality and solidarity are the basis which portray, or at least they should portray, our way of life. But the current social context, where we can find signs of racism and other discriminatory attitudes, forces the fact that these values are only gestures or thoughts present in our society.

Because of that, we think that fairer, more syimpathetic and equalitarian sorroundings need to make society know that these problems don’t belong to a concrete group, but the solution is given by all of us. JIS’s action won’t be exclusively directed to groups of people who suffer discriminatory problems, but to everybody in the same way. Only by having an impact on the attitudes and behaviours of the whole society, we will train a more sympathetic city.

L’Hospitalet de Llobregat is a city of 254.600 inhabitants (the second one in Catalonia regarding population), placed in the costal plain, in Barcelonès region, between Barcelona, Esplugues, Cornellà and El Prat.

The district has an area of 12'5 km² and it is administratively divided into six neighbourhoods.

The efforts of the city in the last decades have been directed to replace these problems and to improve the conditions and life cuality of its inhabbitants, both in the urban and socio-cultural level.

Specifically, JIS is located in the District 2 of the city or in other words, in Collblanc-La Torrassa neighbourhoods. It is a district with very small, aged and in bad conditions buildings, and these factors have had an influence on their prices, which are low and allow their access to families with low incomes.

The Distict 2 has an area of 0'97 km2 and a population of 44.139 inhabitants (January, the 1st, 1998). This means that, having 45.504 inhabitants/km2, it is the densest district in the city after Florida-Pubilla Cases District.

One of the most relevant characteristics in the last decade has been the growth of foreing population, mainly from Magreb and South America. They are, most of the times, people who is not in the census and families with children.

However, it is the district with the most aged population (21,3% of the population is older than 65), and this population is, most of the times, people who live alone (1.147 people older than 75 live alone).

The problem of unemployment is concentrated in three groups with great difficulties of insertion: young people with a low educational level, long lenght unemployers and women who want to rejoin in the labour market.

JIS is a non government organization formed by people of different generations (young, adult and old people). They contribute and organize punctual actions and social programs directed to different needy groups in our city, having as a main objective to raise the awareness and get the involvement of the youth in both the solution of the social problems that envelop them and the construction of a better world for everybody.

We want to work for the construction of a different society and youth. We direct our educative action towards a framework of opposed proposals and values we have detected in the analysis of the reality.

We want a new society:

- A society that stands up for the right to respect and dignity of people who suffer any kind of discrimination on grounds of their race, colour of skin, gender, age, sexual tendency, language, religion, opinion, social or national origin, economic condition or because they suffer from any illness or any physical or psychic handicap.

- A sympathetic society that doesn’t give the cold shoulder for reasons of health or age, and which is committed with the other people of the world.

- A society that fosters the training in subject matters about health.

- An intercultural society, where integration and respect to new cultures are encouraged.

- To get a committment attitude.

- To develop a creative and innovative attitude.

- To motivate the training attitude and the encouragement of the equal oportunities.

- To get a critical attitude, with capacity for analysis of their surroundings, and then foster their reflection and their independence.

-To develop a sympathetic attitude that qualifies them for the active participation in the improvement of the life conditions of the harmest groups.

- To encourage in the volunteers the capacity to accept people from other ethnic groups, and the capacity to tolerate different opinions, believes and customs.

- To develop the effort, using one’s own experiences and imagination in order to understand feelings, points of view and actions of the others.

- To encourage an attitude of dialogue in order to develop democratic habits, learning how cooperate, share and tolerate.

- To encourage the equality betwwen sexes and sexual options in the frame of the group.

- To help to stablish constructive relations between the volunteers which will allow the pacific resolution of conflicts through the dialogue.

JIS in an association that works especially with young people. In our society there are a lot of committed young people, and this is the reason because we base our organization in the voluntary effort of all those people who think that there is a way out discrimination.

The educational contents of our association describe a cycle which has the involvement of the youth in the transformation of their reality as a main objective. It will be done either through the participation in social programs encouraged by our association or by generating an attitude of participation in other associations in the future.

For this aim, we have had to make a basically educative approach with these users, comparing our work methodology with the different evolutive sequences in the assimilation of the committment that solidarity demands.

The different sequences in the development are defined in the following diagram:

TRAINING-INFORMATION

CONSCIOUSNESS-SENSITIVIY PARTICIPATION-ACTION

RESULTS

JIS has always tried to avoid the socio-educational model that promotes the education but doesn’t entail a project made in group. Our model wants young people realizing by themselves the pros and cons of taking their own decisions, encouraging the personal skills in order to make it possible. These skills are the work make by all toghether, the committment, the responsability...

In the comprehensional level and the definition of our actions, we have used different technics of socio-cultural liveliness, promoting the creation of services that are useful for the youth into the framework of the new affirmative politics of youth. All the things we develope into the association are taken from the analysis of our surroundings’ necessities, and we try to make our services useful both for our objectives and for the young people’s development (both human and social).

Flowchart of work in JIS

Annual Assembly

Board of Directors

Coordination of:

President Vicepresident Treasurer Secretary Members

Management, Direction and Expert Staff

Area of Health Encouragement: Coordinator-Experts-Volunteers: Programs and Actions-Working groups:

Program of Youthful Health Agents:

- Agents’ House

- Agents Training Program

Other programs:

- ‘Say your ideas to prevent us from AIDS’ campaign

- Health Program in the schools of ESO

- ‘Juiceland’ Program

- ‘Take cover this summer’ campaign

- ‘Set your mind at rest’ informative campaign

- Celebration of the 1st of December

- Educative Plays: Trivihal prevention of AIDS

‘Raise the Awareness to Act’ Program:

- Youthful Mediators about Solidarity

- Sympathetic actions in the schools of ESO

- Sympathetic Internet

- Other activities to raise the awareness

Other projects:

- Cooperative projects in Nicaragua and Peru

- Sympathetic Summer Courses

- Secondary Schools connected with other Secondary Schools from other countries

- Sympathetic Stays in Nicaragua and Peru

Program to keep Old People company:

- Courses on training the volunteers

- ‘ Know other stories from other views’

Other projects:

- Neighbourhood Celebrations for Old People

- International Day of Alzheimer in L’Hospitalet

- Old people’s House Party

- Youthful Information Point ‘Sympathetic notes’

- Press Clipping

- Youthful Information

- Video library and newspaper library

- Training the Volunteers Service: Specific courses and training schools

- Services Guide and activities in the Schools of ESO in the city

- Queek action device

- Omnia room

- Youth’s house

- Plans to speed up the volunteers

- Press Ofice

Our association is based on speeding up people who become involved in their own actions and programs.

JIS is mainly a volunteers’ association. In this sense, all the programs designed and the actions developed are done by and with volunteers.

As a youthful association, we find that a great part of the young people who collaborate with us are under age. In that case, they are people aware of the social problems and who want to participate in the different activities our association makes. We develop with them a constant training in order to make them, little by little, obtain the skills needed to collaborate in the programs, both in sporadic level or little projects, and in management level in the future. We think that this work and effort is worthwhile, since they are the future of our association. Then, they become Social Agents in their sorroundings, and they are a very important speeding up element.

Once they are over eighteen years old, they can participate in other programs like the keeping old people company one. We think that this program needs from a maturity that young people don’t ususally have when they are fourteen, fiveteen or sixteen, which is the greatest group of young people that works for our association. Sometimes we have find young people of seventeen who feel like doing the program of keeping old people company. They were people who had been in the association for a long time and who had proved their committment with the work they developed. Then we have bet for them, and it has been specified a directed accompaniment in which the volunteer went with some other companion in his/her first visits and then, he/she was made a more careful following.

Another volunteers profile is that of university students. We find young people who wants to collaborate in programs and who participate actively in the management, coordination and planning of these programs. Most of the times they are young students of social university courses who want to get an experience in their field of studies with a view to the future. These students have also the opportunity to perform their university practicals in our association.

Finally, in other level we find experts, professionals and punctual collaborators who have been volunteers of our association and who have reached a participational level into the association that overtakes the working stage of a volunteer. In these cases, they receive an economic remuneration for their labour in the association, but since our budget is very limited, these remunerations cannot be compared with those of the labour market.

Not all the volunteers are trained or interested on doing different things in an association. Because of that, we think their training is very important both in the theoretical level around the programs he/she collaborates in, and his/her capacity in the skills needed in order to understand the life and the internal dynamics of an association like ours.

This is the reason because we make training courses, working meetings, learning workshops, chats...

They also have the possibility to have self-learning courses with our documentation centers. If they need a concrete training we cannot offer in the association, we look for an external training accessible to this volunteer.

Having and managing social programs entails the involvement of experts and professionals in order to start these programs. At the beginning, our association didn’t have any staff but little by little we have had to provide ourselves with expert staff, as our programs have increased in number.

For the time being, we have professionalized different areas of the association. It has meant to have a mixed model in management with volunteers and hired staff. So, now we have a manager, an administrative and a director of the association.

Other professionals of the association are there in order to bring off concrete programs and actions. Their work is the coordination of the programs and the involvement of the volunteers in the programs they carry out. These professionals are working in a temporal or intermittent way because they manage the programs and activities which are developed with economic resources that are, most of the times, have a temporal execution period, as they are, for instance, the contracts for services with the Town Council, specific programs and punctual actions.

These professionals are mostly volunteers of our association, young people who knows the internal function of the association.

At the present time, JIS has premises of 350 m2, arranged in different rooms:

- Youthful Information Spot’s room

- Activities and training room

- Coordination room

- Secretary’s office and Reception

- Management and Administration’s Office

- Toilettes

- Warehouse

- Omnia Spot’s room

We have a net of 6 computers, printers and a scanner in order to carry out our daily work.

Omnia Spot has also 8 computers and a server, scanner, webcam and two printers.

We also have a TV, a home video and a transparencies machine in order to make more active the volunteers’ training.

Because the headquarters is placed in a sociocultural building, we can enter to a hall, bar-restaurant, lift, fire escape and general reception of the building.

These facilities allow us to develop all our actions and activities without having to decentrilize the services, although may of our activities and actions are developed in other equipments in order to give them a municipal character.

In the course of the years, JIS has developed some programs and proceedings for the attainment of its objectives. At the present time, JIS is working in three different areas:

- Area of Solidarity and Cooperation

- Area of Health

- Area of Old People

JIS also offers its services to the Youth. Because of that, they are always present in our association. In this fourth area are developed the following services:

- Youthful Information Spot "Sympathetic Notes"

- Volunteer’s Training Service

- Guide of the Services and Activities in the Schools of ESO in the city

- Device for a Quick Action

- Omnia Room

- Youth’s house

- Publications

The fact that there are these four areas does not mean that a volunteer con only take part in one of them, rather that in our association there is a transversality of contents in all the activities, and a mobility and involvement for the volunteers depending on their interest in the activity or content.

This area has a long program (Raise the Awareness to act), and it has a series of projects in which our volunteers contribute and participate.

# YOUNG MEDIATORS TRAINING IN SOLIDARITY:

This program tries to arouse in the youth values as solidarity and sensitivity towards other cultures and ways of understanding the world. For this aim we need, on the one hand, young people to be receptives towards the social problems of their environment and, on the other hand, a place where they can promote, increase and work with these aspects in a professional way. Because of that, there is a room in the association at the disposal of them, and a professional several days in the week in order to be able to put into practise their ideas.

The concrete tasks that mediators do are directed towards proceedings in centres and associations in the city, like secondary schools, Youthful Centres, houses and associations without the intention of taking profit where their action is appropiate.

# ACTIONS IN THE SCHOOLS:

One of the aims that JIS has is the increased awareness in the schools because it means the opportunity to get in touch with a lot of young people. Because of that, we try to present a lot of different issues which the students can talk about. We want these issues to be very interesting for them, so we bear their age and the educational program of the centre in mind . We also bear the events of the current situation in mind, as for instance the natural dissasters, wars...

What we want is to inform about values like solidarity, democracy, equality, tolerance... by means of talks with a precautionary character. The aim is to make people sensitive in order to avoid the appearance of dangerous behaviours.

# SYMPATHETIC INTERNET:

This is a project that belongs to the program ‘Raise the Awareness to Act’, which is developed inside the association. This is a service by means of which we want young people from L’Hospitalet be able to use a free link-up to Internet, so they can get in touch whith other sympathetic experiences in the world, and then, they can meet the possibilities of action in the area of solidarity and international cooperation.

# YOUTH OF THE WORLD:

Youth of the World is a program which is based in the exchange of correspondence between young people from L’Hospitalet and youth of developing countries or countries that are in war or postwar.

# OTHER ACTIVITIES AND SYMPATHETIC CELEBRATION:

From the association, we work in issues about increased awareness in the neighbourhoods of our city, taking part in their cultural and game activities. We take part generally in:

- Increased Awareness against Racism and Intolerance campaings.

- Celebration of the Diversity in L’Hospitalet

- Conferences in L’Hospitalet and Catalonia

- Campaings for the support of the International Solidarity: Sahara, Bosnia, Nicaragua...

- ‘How to be Sympathetic Youth’ campaing.

- Citizen of the World Card

- ‘Say your Ideas for the Peace in the World’

- Peace’s Day

- Day against Racism

# COOPERATIVE PROJECTS FOR THE DEVELOPEMENT OF NICARAGUA AND PERU:

During the last years we have carried out different programs of cooperation in countries like Peru and Nicaragua. In Peru, in the city of Lima, we carry out a program of promotion of the health for young people who are in a situation of social risk. In Nicaragua, in the town of Managua, we have started collaborating with the comunity of San Judas’ Neighbourhood in issues related to education and and the world of pleasure and sport.

# SYMPATHETIC SUMMER COURSES:

Summer is a good season to do actions in solidarity and increased awareness with young people because they have a lot of free time to participate. Because of that, during summer, we develope courses focused on solidarity, diversity and cooperation with young people of our town who are from 14 to 17 years old. In 1999, 25 young people of our city participated in these courses.

# SYMPATHETIC STAYS IN NICARAGUA AND PERU:

We think that cooperation and solidarity have to be encouraged from our city, but it is also necessary to know by first hand the actual situation of people who live in underdeveloped countries or developing countries. Because of that, we cooperate directly by helping in the building of spaces and civic equipments which can be enjoyed by the population. The working stays last a month and we try to optimize this time making a previous work with the aim of designing, as better as possible, the activities that will be carried out.

AREA OF HEALTH ENCOURAGEMENT:

In our association, we channel the actions and activities of the Area of Health through the program of ‘Youthful Health Agents’.

# PROGRAM OF YOUTHFUL HEALTH AGENTS:

We train young people interested in the circles of precautionary health in order to make them able to be they themselves the training agents of their equals. Making use of their interest in this subject, we provide them with tools useful for them to be autonomous, so we try to detect their necessities and we act consequently, under the supervision of professionals of our association, who offer themselves as a support.

Young people are provided with tools in order to make them think, design, make and, afterwards, evaluate their precautionary activities. It is also very important their help in projects that the association starts.

# SAY YOUR IDEAS TO PREVENT US FROM AIDS’ CAMPAING:

AIDS will be, regarding the statistical predictions, one of the deadliest illnesses in the next five-year periods. Because of that, we make a series of activities and workshops related to this disease with the purpose of making the population in general and the youth in particular aware of its repercussion. This activity wants the youth’s knowledges about the ways of inflection, personal and social repercussion, progress and prognosisof this disease to be able to be expressed by young people in a short text. Afterwards, they share their knowledges with the other young people, so that they can get richer through the other’s contribution.

# HEALTH PROGRAM IN THE SCHOOLS:

Inside the circles of training in the schools of our city, we also promote the prevention of health and risky conducts associated to the taking of drugs like alcohol and the pill-popping. We provide them with information about the precautionary contraceptive steps in order to prevent them from having not desired pregnancies and venereal diseases like AIDS and others.

Another subject matter we are promoting is the healthy nutrition. It has been splicity demanded by the schools themselves since it was happening more and more cases of boys and girls who had risk of suffering from anorexia and bulimia. We are also developing the project ‘Youthful Information Spot about AIDS’ inside the secondary schools in our city and other places were the youth moves among.

# JUICELAND PROGRAM:

In this program we promote the youth in our city drinking healthy drinks, and we do it by means of workshops where they can test by themselves how to make non alcoholic drinks in a funny way, and they learn that the joy can work without these drugs. These workshops are developed into the state secondary schools, schools, associations, Youthful Centre...

# ‘TAKE COVER THIS SUMMER’ CAMPAING:

With this activity, we make a dissemination about the use of condoms as the best precautionary method to prevent not desired pregnanciesand the only one to prevent the inflection of venereal diseases. We take advantage of the summer season and, with the participation of our volunteers, we deliver a coloured card with an explicit message printed and a condom in places where the youth use to go like pubs, cinemas, discos, etc.

This campaing has been developed during 1998 and 1999. We have delivered 5000 condoms every year and more that 50 volunteers have participated.

The 1st of December is the International Day for the Struggle Against AIDS. Since 6 years ago, JIS has worked out at the streets in our city to raise the awareness of people in different aspects related to this disease by means of collaborating with the AIDS Municipal Commission. Since the last year, we have betted on a coach which makes a route around different places in the city popularizating this issue. In order to do this work, we have, as usual, the support of our volunteers, who are sensitive to these matters.

# GAME TRIVIHAL TO PREVENT AIDS:

The known game Trivial allows the interaction between different people and, at the same time, they can learn new concepts which can be useful for them. Taking advantage of the enjoyable and fluent dynamics of Trivial, JIS has designed a game with the same rules and characteristics but which is approached with questions and answers related to AIDS. It is suitable for working in schools, Youthful Centres, in the street or in the different celebrations and activities of pleasure on which we participate.

AREA OF PROCEEDINGS WITH OLD PEOPLE:

The area of the most recent grouping in our association is the one of Old People. The key program is the house accompaniment to old men and women who live alone at their home, but our volunteers also participate, in fact, in other projects.

# ‘ACCOMPANIMENT TO OLD PEOPLE’ PROGRAM:

For the time being, we carry a work of continual house accompaniment out during periods of one week. One of the fixed and achieved aims has been the allocation of a permanent volunteer with each old man/woman who is part of our project. We have a series of volunteers who make punctual accompaniments to go to the doctor and other activities of the daily live in accordance with the old person’s characteristics and needs.

# COURSES FOR TRAINING THE VOLUNTEERS:

The house accompaniment to old people needs from a previous training, since it is an activity that implies the direct contact with people who are living in a difficul psycho-social condition: loneliness, absence of economic means, health troubles, etc. The theorico-practical training we offer is addressed to provide understanding towards those bio-psyco-social aspects of the old person. The course is divided into three modules, which are thought to assist, the most as possible, a fluent and participative dynamic of our volunteers.

# KNOW OTHER STORIES FROM OTHER VIEWS:

Participating actively in our society is a right for everybody. From JIS, we think that el old people in our city have a lot to say and, because of that, we make this intergenerational experience. We promote an approach between old and young people in our city by means of exchanging experiences and establishing a relationship where communication and dialogue are possible between these two generations.

# OTHER PROJECTS:

The volunteers in the area of Old People (and other volunteers who would like to collaborate) can participate in different punctual activities in which we ask for their helf, as for example neighbourhood festivities for old people, the International Day of Alzheimer in L’Hospitalet, the International Day of Alzheimer in Barcelona, the Old People’s House Party...

AREA OF SERVICES:

This area develops those services which have a functioning by their own because their contents are transverse to other programs. These services are:

# YOUTHFUL INFORMATION SPOT: SYMPATHETIC NOTES:

Inside our association, we have a wide documentary database which consists of press clipping, home video and other equipments which are updated in the subject matters whe deal with: racism, human rights, gypsy group, AIDS prevention, alcoholism, etc. Everybody interested in these issues has free access to it, and it can be a useful tool for young people in the city who need to look for information to do their essays.

# OMNIA SPOT:

Bearing these objectives in mind, it has been designed a program of intervention in the neighbourhood in order to provide the most people as possible with an access to this device. Omnia Spot provides them with a net of nine computers linked up to Internet, some printers, a colour scanner and a webcam, all coordianted by a person who can resolve any dubt the user can have.

7.- ACTIONS WHICH ARE COMMUNITY IN THEIR SCOPE:

In a different level of participation and community action, it is important to point out that the different programs we carry out are in a constant coordination with the social services of our environment.

In a local level, we participate actively in the different Participational Organs that are functioning municipality, as for instance:

- Municipal Commission of Drug Addictions.

- Technical Commission of AIDS

- Municipal Council of Solidarity and International Cooperation

- Municipal Council of Old People.

All these organs coordinate the different actions about these subject matters carried out in our minicipality.

We also are part of the Speeding-up Community plan in L’Hospitalet, which coordinate about twenty social associations in our city, the Town Council of L’Hospitalet and the Generalitat de Catalunya’s Head Office of Community Services.

One of the last adventures we have began with is the participation in Omnia’s net, in which we share a computers room with Agrupament Esolta Arrels. Its philosophy is to bring nearer new technologies to all the population, trying to make them a tool to avoid social exclusion. In Omnia

Spot, as well as having open service hours, are developed training courses for young people in programs of social guarantee and in different social sectors in the district Collblanc-La Torrassa, as they are old people, children, immigrants...

In a relational level with Catalonian Institutions, we carry out relationships with the Town Council in different areas in a local level, with Generalitat de Catalunya, both in the Youth’s level and Social Wellbeing, and with Diputació de Barcelona.

In a local and neighbourhood level, the coordination and work with other associations in the city is constant. In the neighbourhood, we are part of the Associations Commission in Collblanc-La Torrassa, where the town-planning and social improvement in the neighbourhood are developend and designed with the coordination of the Town Council’s Town Planning.

We also work from the Celebrations Commission in Collblanc-La Torrassa coordinated with more than thirty associations in the neighbourhood in order to mace activities as, for example, the Diversity Celebration in L’Hospitalet.

8. FUTURE PROSPECTS AND CONCLUSIONS:

An association is something more than a set of people who are part of it. Our objectives and programs can change depending on the people and volunteers who participate in the associations. Our association has a very dynamic functioning and it has also change a lot since its foundation. It is very difficult to predict how JIS will be in the next years, but we have something clear: the objectives we want to get about solidarity, equality and freedom will be always in our ideology.

Like any other association which wants to improve its actions and programs, we raise, with a view to the future, the next basis of work:

• We want to contribute in the improvement of the social wellbeing of the youth in our city, studing in depth and making profitable our experience in social, health and solidarity programs in order to search new ways of occupation for unemployed young people, in subject matters as different as health promotion, house help for old people…
• We want to involve the most citizens as possible in the improvement of living conditions in different countries in the world, studing in depth the knowledge of other countries’ reality and being conductive to the creation of new programs about solidarity and international cooperation.
• We want to participate and contribute with our effort in the social improvements of our environment, our neighbourhood, our city and our country.

To sum up, we want to contribute little by little by doing our bit in the creation of a new world where there are not social injustices, where there is no room for intolerance, and in the construction of a world where everybody has the same opportunities.

9. VOLUNTEERS OF EXCHANGE IN JIS:

Volunteers of exchange who come to our association have a lot of work to do, depending always on their worries, skills and interests. They can participate in any work area under the charge of their responsible person.

As any other collaborator, they would trained to carry out the tasks they should develop and they would begin helping their colleagues in the projects that would be being carried out.

Some examples of what these european volunteers can do in JIS are:

• To help in the Youth’s House (about solidarity, health, theatre…)
• To help in the design and development of social projects
• To help in the talks about health and solidarity done in the Secondary Schools.
• To be in charge of the Youthful Information Spot.
• To be in charge of the consultant’s office.
• To collaborate in Omnia’s project about new technologies (whether in workshops, designing web pages, drawing up self-learning cards…)
• To organize and be in charge of an activity in the Youth’s House.

They would participate in the life of our association