When the environment around us threatens to collapse or transform behind the backs of those who inhabit it, passivity is not a viable option. Global dynamics tend to blur local realities, turning neighborhoods into commodities, destroying basic commercial fabrics, or ignoring the needs of the most complex families during the summer months. Faced with this inertia, the answer inevitably involves direct intervention in the material world: reclaiming control of public spaces, lifting shutters where only ruins remain, and ensuring that institutions do not unilaterally dictate the fate of our lives.

This fortnightly newsletter invites us to focus on three initiatives that, far from abstract declarations, propose tangible and urgent solutions to transform daily life. These are projects that assume the responsibility of redesigning their own reality through urban planning, basic supply, and adapted leisure. In the following lines, we discover how mobilization translates into real infrastructures that challenge institutional neglect and actively contest the right to a habitable future.

Defensem Vallcarca: aturem la gentrificació!

This project consists of a campaign promoted by the Som Barri Neighborhood Association to cover the judicial, administrative, and urban planning advisory expenses derived from neighbor resistance in the Vallcarca neighborhood, Barcelona. The community is organizing to confront an obsolete urban plan and the wave of administrative sanctions resulting from protests against evictions and demolitions in the old town. Through this solidarity fund, they seek to provide legal coverage for those affected and design an alternative plan completely authored by the community.

The initiative is of vital importance because Vallcarca is under a constant threat of gentrification and real estate speculation that aims to displace lower-income families to replace them with tourism and high-purchasing-power profiles. Defending this corner of the city means protecting the historic social fabric, urban gardens, and self-managed community spaces. This is the front line of defense for the right to housing and for a working-class Barcelona that refuses to become a mere commercial showcase.

Support this crowdfunding campaign and help us show that faced with the pedagogy of fear and fines, we respond with class solidarity and collective action. Donate here.

A grocery shop in Gaza

This project consists of the creation of a new grocery store in the Al-Nasr district of Gaza City, driven by Ibrahim, his family, and a support network based between Madrid and Berlin. After losing everything and enduring multiple forced displacements, Ibrahim is seeking to rent and renovate a commercial space to generate a sustainable source of income, allowing him to autonomously support the 26 people who make up his extended family. The crowdfunding is directed at covering the initial repairs of the space, electricity supply, and the purchase of basic food inventory.

The relevance of this campaign is immense, as it goes beyond temporary humanitarian aid to lay the foundations for economic emancipation and autonomous community reconstruction from the ground up. Al-Nasr currently lacks grocery stores due to war destruction, so this shop will provide an essential, low-cost proximity service for neighbors returning to the area. Furthermore, it functions as a replicable pilot project showing that territories belong to those who inhabit them, directly fighting exclusion and third-party speculation.

Through your contribution, you directly help build a livelihood amidst the ruins and restore dignity and food sovereignty to a devastated community. Donate here.

Inclusion doesn't take a break

This initiative consists of setting up the first adapted summer day camp at working-class prices in Barcelona, specifically designed for 22 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other special needs. Promoted by the Vil·la Joana School AFA and Fundesplai, the project offers five weeks of inclusive leisure during June and July. The service stands out for having specialized professionals who guarantee an intensive ratio of one monitor for every two to three children, taking place within the same school facilities that the students already know and inhabit with total confidence.

The project addresses a deep structural inequality, as conventional summer options lack the ratios and methodological adaptations required to properly serve children with complex needs. The absence of an adapted structure during holidays causes these children to lose their therapeutic and well-being routines, subjecting their families to a disproportionate burden that severely hinders work-life balance and rest. Consolidating this space secures the right to play under equal conditions and demonstrates the viability of a public care model that can be replicated in other special education centers across Catalonia.

Your donation translates directly into weeks of peace of mind for families and a summer filled with joy, safety, and specialized care for the center's children. Participate here.

What about you? What are you interested in?

😙 At the Platoniq Foundation we are dedicated to disseminating innovative democratic initiatives that add value for citizens, as well as to promoting crowdfunding for projects with social impact through our platform Goteo.org. Join us at our events and continue promoting democratic transition and collective empowerment.

🥰 Join this transformation! Let the social and solidarity energy flow, because in a seemingly devastated world, we can still build change. Donate to our campaign and participate in the new version of Goteo.

See you in the next newsletter! 😜

That's as far as we go. We hope this newsletter has encouraged you to keep walking towards the society of all and for all that we are gradually approaching. See you next time!