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BiciÁGORA: Spaces for socio-environmental transformation

Promotion and empowerment of groups of women entrepreneurs to forge their civic leadership towards local co-creation of well-being, coexistence, and equity.

Municipality

CO
Bucaramanga, Santander,

Category / Sub-Category / Topic

Government and Governance, Citizen participation

Type of investment needed

Grant

Associated SDGs

The challenge

“Puente Nariño” is an informal settlement located on the banks of the Río de Oro - adjacent to the Linear Park - where 1,900 people are in a situation of environmental vulnerability with a high risk of disaster due to natural calamities - such as flooding. Additionally, a high rate of child malnutrition (according to a report by the newspaper Vanguardia: https://www.vanguardia.com/area-metropolitana/bucaramanga/casos-de-desnutricion-infantil-han-aumentado-un-56-en-santander-HEVL433051) is present in the community.

Sources (in Spanish):

https://www.vanguardia.com/area-metropolitana/bucaramanga/estas-son-las-zonas-de-riesgo-en-el-area-metropolitana-NN1942582

https://www.vanguardia.com/area-metropolitana/bucaramanga/la-comunidad-denuncia-deterioro-del-puente-antono-narino-al-norte-de-bucaramanga-YE4886881

The project

This project focuses on the collective construction of organized community leadership, led by entrepreneurial women identified in the field, to understand, formulate, develop, and coordinate strategies that channel their right to erect joint responsibilities and integrated solutions with municipal and metropolitan public agents on the territory.

The new community leadership in Puente Nariño is framed under 3 aspects:

  • Sensitize the population to the potential danger of their current housing location with a need for relocation and provide educational tools that collectively build solutions for physical and environmental security with the generation of new opportunities for education and circular economy.
  • Generate mechanisms to develop high awareness and sensitization about the care, preservation, and responsible use of the environment, along with the decontamination of the Río de Oro and its tributaries.
  • Initiate processes of collective construction of integrated urban and rural planning of the territory with guarantees of transitability and environmental sustainability of metropolitan scope, for the development of public policies that serve the most vulnerable population of the city, in relation to their housing, services, and high-quality, safe, and healthy equipment.

The development of the project takes into account 3 groups of components for the construction of new organized social fabrics:

  1. Human-community component. Conformed through participatory procedures with co-creation principles to achieve high civic empowerment of the population group led by entrepreneurial women (Arnstein, 1969).
  2. Physical-spatial component. It is integrated by two elements as a toolbox for the population that is configured as an active laboratory to help and learn through experience knowledge with collective actions to carry out comprehensive public policies of territorial planning, and with the capacity to provide the beginning of processes of regeneration of urban, rural, and environmental landscapes. It is composed of the "BiciÁgora" and the "SISON" system.
  3. Educational and behavioral component. It is the development of a participatory community guide that promotes and provides pedagogical aids in the process of creating empowerment and leadership of entrepreneurial women "PIRUR" (guide for the urban, rural, and environmental regeneration of the territory). The guide document seeks to contribute specific processes of local culture to sensitize and raise awareness of the population, being integrated into the activities and contents of the "BiciÁgora" and the "SISON" system. It is an instrument that can be collaboratively managed to accompany pedagogical and environmental community processes that contribute to improving the well-being, coexistence, and equity of people located in the settlement.

In the short term (18 months), the 3 components are projected to be developed, and then in the medium and long term, the development of a comprehensive plan for the urban and rural regeneration of the territory will continue and scale. The initiative must articulate with the Zonal Integral Plan "PIZ," developed by the municipality of Bucaramanga in the 2016-2019 government period and continued in 2020-2023. The sum of the factors leads to the union with a commitment to developing policies for transforming the spaces adjacent to the Río de Oro for the other municipalities that make up the Metropolitan Area, where the consolidation of networks of organized community leadership with entrepreneurial women is fundamental.

In the medium and long term, the initiative through the community leadership network also seeks to guarantee the sensitization of the population from childhood. The conscious new generation seeks to modify human behaviors of people living in this and other settlements that need to be relocated.

Know more...

Puente Nariño settlement is located on the banks of the Río del Oro river, in the first district in the north of the city. There, 1900 people live in high risk of human calamity and environmental disaster due to the rising of the river. It is a settlement formed by the illegal occupation of land that is not suitable for housing. 65% of the land was formed through the illegal buying and selling of land, another 25% was created through land invasion, and 10% through self-construction processes.

The people who inhabit the area suffer from a high illiteracy rate, low education, high school dropout rate, and only 3% have completed university education. Over 70% of their inhabitants work in the informal sector and multidimensional poverty is present in 28% of households, with 11% in extreme poverty. The people who live in the settlement have a low level of accessibility to productive and educational urban centers in the city. In addition to this social reality, there is an environmental risk: the Río del Oro is classified as one of the 10 most contaminated rivers in the country.

During the 2016-2019 government period, the municipality of Bucaramanga developed the Comprehensive Zonal Plan "PIZ", which was continued from 2020-2023. The main objective of the plan is to guide the actions and public investments of the Bucaramanga Municipal Administration, to achieve an "Ideal, Balanced, Articulated, and Functional Territorial System" in the sector. This is achieved through the implementation of proposals contained in a short, medium, and long-term execution program, in line with the planning horizon of the TERRITORIAL PLANNING PLAN (POT) and articulated with three constitutional periods of municipal government, in order to improve the quality of life of the population. Despite this, there is a lack of integration of municipal and metropolitan public policy regarding the sustainable and safe management of the territory, which has led to the growth of precarious urban physical spaces.

The existence of community leadership composed of entrepreneurial women has been identified, who could become agents of change, accessing institutional processes to promote positive transformation of the territory. However, they lack representative networks or knowledge of these processes.

1- Human Community Component:

Activity 1: Co-development of "COCOL" workshops (Collective construction of organized community leadership with women entrepreneurs): Development of the community empowerment process, taking into account the design and realization of multiple work and co-creation workshops with community articulation tables, as well as other public, private and guild institutional techniques. The short-term proposal is initially carried out by mapping and forming solid groups of community leadership and finally developing awareness procedures that lead to the relocation of the Puente Nariño settlement. To achieve this, 5 types of workshops will be held:

  • Collective awareness workshops: Capacity building
  • Workshops for children: Importance of decontaminating the Río de Oro and inhabiting safe places. Knowing and learning crop cycles.
  • Workshops for adolescents: Training related to natural risk situations, importance of water and the water resources of the environment, agrosustainable policy and energy use.
  • Workshops for women entrepreneurs for agrosustainable development of the territory and food self-sufficiency
  • Inter-institutional workshops with community and metropolitan integration for agrosustainable development of the territory and food self-sufficiency, with the aim of developing the contents of the PIRUR guide.

Activity 2: Development of the "COCOL" mobile application: Design and development of a computerized application to inform and generate citizen participation synergies aimed at building female leaders and the community. This activity is integrated with BiciÁgora and PIRUR, and its objectives are disaster prevention and dissemination of calls for general community interest meetings -cultural, educational, recreational and informative activities-.

2- Physical-spatial component:

Activity 3: Design and construction of the "BICIÁGORA": This involves the design and development of a versatile and multifunctional mobile display element that invites pedagogical, co-creative, educational, environmental and socio-cultural activities. The BiciÁgora would start as a prototype with the possibility of replicability and modular growth adaptable to the population scale.

Activity 4: Disaster prevention system and water pollution meter "SISON": Design, purchase and implementation of the "SISON" Sound System for disaster prevention resulting from river floods, which integrates a water pollution meter. The Sound System for disaster prevention would be integrated by floating elements located on the water surface of the river, which are connected to an alert network that announces river floods in the streets (located at determined distances from the settlement's location). The system also incorporates a water pollution measuring instrument.

3- Educational and behavioral component:

Activity 5: Elaboration of the PIRUR Guide: Elaboration of the participatory plan and project cycle to promote urban, rural and environmental regeneration of the territory with collective deduction and under co-creation, development and monitoring processes. It takes into account the elaboration of the plan and program with a calendar of assigned activities to continue towards the development of the metropolitan integral public policy articulated to the local, regional and national normative institutional programs (Bucaramanga and Girón POTs, Bucaramanga PIZ, among others).

Direct results

  • 1 BiciÁgora prototype built
  • 176 training sessions held over 12 months for various groups.
  • 1 training guide developed to generate mechanisms of socio-environmental co-responsibility for the urban and rural regeneration of the territory (PIRUR).
  • 1 CoCol mobile application designed and operational.
  • 1 disaster prevention system "SiSon" installed.

Expected impact

  • Form 3 community leaderships distributed in consolidated groups of representation (one for each geographical zone, river, plateau, and mountain slope) in communication with the local government by 2025.

  • Laboratorio del Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje SENA (Tecnoparque de Bucaramanga, Colombia)
  • Junta(s) de Acción Comunal JAC and/or Community(ies) Puente Nariño and surroundings (Comuna Norte, Café Madrid)
  • Municipality/Municipalities of Bucaramanga and Girón (Support alternatives with Risk Management and Social Development)
  • Berta Flores Aricó. International ally, expert in Human Rights. External collaborator (Paris, France). Will provide support in some workshops and to create the PIRUR guide.
Director.
  • IVÁN DARÍO ACEVEDO GÓMEZ, Colombian-Spanish Master Architect and director of the IAA Studio team and founder of the TABUÚ Collective. Specialist in urban regeneration, participatory design, co-creation, and co-design with principles of eco-efficiency. Creator of the initiative and expert general coordinator (ivan@ivanacevedoarquitectos.com).

Social, technological, and local activist allies and coordination.

  • CARLOS ANDRÉS ESCALANTE HIGUERA: Master Technical Engineer in Industrial Design and director of the Human Bionics team. Specialist in eco-design and vehicle design (info@hunionics.com).
  • MAYERLY ALEJANDRA MEDINA CHARRY, Social Worker and coordinator of the social team at the TABUÚ Collective (mayerly@tabuu.org).
  • CARMEN LUCÍA FORERO FLOREZ: Physiotherapist and President of the non-profit foundation Volver a Soñar. Social activist (volverasonar@gmail.com).
  • CÉSAR JULIÁN ACEVEDO GÓMEZ, Master Civil Engineer and Legal Representative of the leading team IAA Studio (cesar@ivanacevedoarquitectos.com).

Investment

(*): In kind/pro bonus

(**): Financing

Goods and inputs
Funds
Needed
Covered
Solicited

Materiales y herramientas para el diseño de prototipo a escala real de BiciÁgora (**)

u$s 25000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 25000.00

Materiales para talleres de sensibilización colectiva (papelería para difusión, exposiciones, materiales para encuentros de saberes, talleres de imaginarios, entre otros) (**)

u$s 3000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 3000.00

Materiales para la elaboración de la guía PIRUR (papelería, impresiones, maquetas, otros) (**)

u$s 5000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 5000.00

Materiales para la construcción del sistema de alerta SISON (**)

u$s 10000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 10000.00

Hardware para la construcción del sistema de alerta SISON (componentes eléctricos e informáticos) (**)

u$s 5000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 5000.00

Software especializado (construcción del sistema de alerta SISON) (**)

u$s 5000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 5000.00

Human resources
Funds
Needed
Covered
Solicited

Equipo de trabajo (8 meses): 1 Arquitecto (coordinador equipo), 1 Diseñador industrial, 2 Dibujantes (2 meses), 1 Ingeniero civil p/time y 1 Ingeniero mecánico p/time (**)

u$s 57000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 57000.00

2 operarios de Biciágora full/part time (5 meses) (**)

u$s 8000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 8000.00

Equipo de trabajo (dictado de los talleres de cocreación y codiseño de BiciÁgora): 1 coordinador experto p/time (12 meses), 1 arquitecto p/time (1 mes) y 1 trabajadores sociales p/time (12 meses) (**)

u$s 20000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 20000.00

Equipo de trabajo (desarrollo de la aplicación web móvil COCOL): 1 Coordinador experto (7 meses), 1 diseñador industrial (7 meses), 2 diseñadores gráficos (2 meses), 1 coordinador de temáticas para el desarrollo (7 meses) y 1 abogado (1 mes). (**)

u$s 40000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 40000.00

Equipo de trabajo para el dictado de talleres de sensibilización colectiva (8 meses): 1 coordinador experto, 1 arquitecto, 2 trabajadores sociales, 1 biólogo o ingeniero con especialidad ambiental part time y 1 abogado (**)

u$s 57000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 57000.00

Equipo de trabajo (elaboración guía PIRUR- 4 meses): Coordinador experto, arquitecto, trabajador social, ing especialista en gerencia de proyectos, abogado o politólogo y diseñador gráfico (**)

u$s 20000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 20000.00

Equipo de trabajo (desarrollo del sistema SISON - 8 meses): Coordinador general p/time, Coordinador experto en programación, ingeniero, diseñador industrial, diseñador gráfico, biólogo o ingeniero con especialidad ambiental para el desarrollo y abogado (**)

u$s 40000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 40000.00

TOTAL AMOUNTS:

u$s 295000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 295000.00

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