On Thursday 12 March, we held a workshop as part of our project “Cultivating Democracy: Recipes for Resilience”, a research initiative co-funded by the State Secretariat for Global Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. This event was held at Greenpeace Spain headquarters and it took place from 9:30am to 5pm.
This project aims to foster a collective process of reflection, exchange and action in response to the challenges facing our democracies, particularly in Spain. To this end, the workshop was attended by various civil society organisations and academics, with the aim of sharing ideas about the challenges and opportunities for democracy in Spain as perceived from each of their respective fields of work.
Thus, Alessia Schiavon, director of FIBGAR, and Nadia Gayoso de la Calle, project manager, welcomed the attendees and opened the conference, explaining what the event aimed to achieve and the methodology to be followed, framing the event within FIBGAR’s campaign and commitment, ‘Democracy is not inherited’.
This was followed by three simultaneous working groups, in which the participating organisations were grouped into three thematic areas or areas of focus: justice and accountability, freedom of expression and information, and citizen participation and inclusion. The guiding principle behind these sessions was to create a relaxed atmosphere in which the organisations participating in each group could discuss the challenges they face in their work on the topic, the opportunities presented by the current context, and consider priorities for action in future initiatives.
Following a coffee break, each group was able to share, via a general working session, the challenges and opportunities they had encountered in relation to each thematic area. The groups thus identified common challenges such as disinformation in digital media or the lack of recognition of social rights across all three areas of work, but they also recognised that the real opportunity to address these lies in working in a coordinated and collective manner.
After a lunch and networking session, Alma Bustamante, project manager at ALDA (European Association for Local Democracy), led an informative workshop for attendees on the various calls for projects that make up the CERV programme (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme).
The events of today highlight the willingness of civil society organisations to combat the anti-democratic threats that may loom over Spain, as well as the need to convey to the public the message that democracy must be nurtured and defended on a daily basis, without taking for granted that there is no risk of a return to political systems that do not respect rights and restrict the freedoms we enjoy today.
