June has been an intense month for LASERMED 24 project, especially regarding the community building activities, achieving the first introductory online meeting and a three-day exchange visit in different municipalities of Barcelona Province.

The partners celebrated the first LASERMed Community meeting by reestablishing contact between the cities involved in pilot projects and exchange field missions. A part from Agadir, Assalt, Sousse, Zarqa and Zgharta-Ehden, a technical representative of El Prat de Llobregat was also present during the meeting, as they were actively participating in the first project edition. The online meeting also was the opportunity to present the framework and objectives of the community, find out what has been done and what the LASERMed pilots learned, and align knowledge of the socioeconomic promotion and employability framework with an environmental perspective.

Then, from June 11th to June 13th, jointly with the financial and technical partner Diputació de Barcelona (Provincial Council of Barcelona), we welcomed and hosted 9 people from Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco: 4 representatives of Zarqa, 2 representatives of Agadir, 2 representatives of the As-Salt, and 1 representative of Zgharta-Ehden. They came to visit three municipal-driven lighthouse projects on women’s empowerment, circular economy, and disabled people’s inclusion.

In Santa Coloma de Gramenet, technical and political staff introduce the CIBA space, a centre for women that facilitates women’s autonomy and well-being in all areas of life. In Gavà, the representatives have met with members of the Union of Cooperators, the city’s equipment that brings together social and solidarity economy initiatives and collaborative entrepreneurship, such as the flea and farmer’s market. Finally, they discovered the Economic Promotion Center and the Rubricatus project for the socioeconomic insertion of disabled people of the Prat de Llobregat. The visit was a success for the participants, who mentioned the relevance of issues to their needs, mainly concerning women and disabled people.  

Finally, we were pleased to know that the Agadir pilot project started with its first training sessions during the last week of June. This training, which will last until mid-October, targets 60 women from the Tikiouine quarters in Agadir. The training goals are to prepare those women to find funding to launch and manage their businesses properly.