Lighthouse Global has concluded the first round of the Lighthouse’s Europe Call 2020 To Support Social And Ecological Sustainability Initiatives. During this first round, we have been able to get to know initiatives that work for social and ecological sustainability.

It has been a very interesting process in which we can confirm the great contribution of these initiatives, which are small in size but huge in their experience, knowledge and commitment to their near reality.

With the call, we make ourselves available to these initiatives in order to support the process of systematizing their knowledge and working together in order to be able to share their knowledge.

In addition, we offered financial support to make a significant contribution to projects. These sometimes do not meet the requirements for applying for help from other common, public or private funding offers.

Finally, we have chosen a neighborhood-based project with a history of more than 25 years and with a great capacity for creativity and commitment to social sustainability.

This is the Sostre project in the Barceloneta district in the city of Barcelona [https://www.projectesostre.org/]. It is described as a project in which people from one neighborhood are integrated into one neighborhood. But, as we have seen, it is much more than that. The Barceloneta neighborhood is organized in such a way that it accompanies the neighbors who sleep on the street. Also other people from other parts of the city are taking part in the project.

Sostre is a place where the neighborhood, volunteers and residents meet every night in a warm and welcoming atmosphere to build social bonds. In addition, there are awareness-raising effects and transformation processes among the volunteers in the neighborhood. Lighthouse would like to capture this through methodical support. This knowledge can thus be used, replicated, shared and expanded.

As announced by the 2020 Call, Sostre, as a selected initiative, has already received financial support from Lighthouse that will be used to create new channels of coordination, communication, training and recruitment of volunteers, at the service of residents in an environment of crisis and need for reinvention. Online promotion of the exchange of information and experience, as a training opportunity, simultaneously promotes internal and external communication for the entire project.

We are now beginning with the next phase with Sostre: a collective analysis of their needs, consolidation of quality standards, contributing to make the project sustainable over time (85% carried out with volunteers), share with other similar initiatives, explain accumulated knowledge and open up to new knowledge.

We, as the Lighthouse team, have a job ahead of us, and we have already undertaken it. We have no doubt that it will be a transformative experience.