Facing an increase of the extremist right wing and descrimnation speech in Portugal specially with the Roma communities and in the particular case of Lourinhã, action is needed.
This work will be held in 3 municipal neighborhoods where the Roma community live together with other communities. Through several collaborative and participative initiatives around their stories and memories,we pretend to make the first step towards a more politically conscious, organized and active community.

Lourinhã. Rural areas in the municipal neighborhoods of Casal Novo, Moita and Reguengo Grande.

Future Memories will work on the identity and memory of the Lourinhã Roma community as a way to reinforce the sense of belonging and place identity, involving the different communities in a collective construction and development of new memories that can generate a more cohesive, inclusive and participatory community, mitigating the discrimation speech.
Through several integrated activities the project will sensibilize/create awareness on both the Roma and its neighbors community, as well on the local authorities about the importance to co-design a set of public policies and behaviors on both sides shaping of a letter of demands and letter of commitments materialized in a co-designed artistic intervention.

We will work mainly with the Roma community in three different municipal districts: Casal Novo,Reguengo and Moita.
The community is characterized by:
- low level of schooling and a high rate of school absenteeism, which has a very negative impact on their rate of employability as adults and, consequently, on their social integration.
-lack of community organization of these groups means that they are not effectively represented in decision-making forums on public policies that directly and indirectly affect their lives, increasing the distance from mechanisms of participatory democracy, thus increasing the incomprehension of how these mechanisms work and lack of civic pro-activity.

Starting from proximity and active work, and based on the trust already established, we will create intergenerational focus groups/safe spaces where participants will share life stories and their relations with the territory.
These stories will be recorded, as the basis for the creation of a documentary (format defined with the participants) but also an archive of memories. By mapping the stories we pretend to have tangible and graphic content of the physical and emotional connections of each person's stories with the history of the place, and therefore start from a collective identity work to reach and engage towards a communitarian sense - communitary group.
A Letter of demands and commitment will emerge from a collective mapping process using the photovoice methodology, allowing the community to express desires, needs, and the projection of individual and collective dreams in a shared and trust space.
Based on the collected stories it will be co-decided with the community which symbolic moments are important to celebrate, and based on these choices 2 moments will be co-designed and co-produced where the community will take a central role in the programming, production and logistics of the events in order to initiate a commitment of shared responsibilities with the support of several sessions of group capacitation given by the Roma NGOs partners.

The project will have actively contributed to the community political empowerment and engagement towards self-organisation of groups of residents (formal or informal) resulting and enabling in the creation of a Communitarian Active Group composed by residents groups including Roma people, and a Local Action Group composed by now organized residents he local authorities(Parish Council and Municipality),NGO´s and others. By creating this, they can start to understand and participate and impact the life, the dynamics of their territories and the communities they represent, with the purpose of bringing the local power closer to these groups, thus materialising a bridge between bottom-up initiatives in their sewing with top-down strategies and policies. A project that aims for a Future Memory.

Working under a proximity principle for the stories and memories colection, this auscultation process aims to engage the community to a sense of belonging to the place. Using photovoice methodology, we’ll understand the place through the eyes of the residents from specific areas, resulting in a collaborative mapping. The promotion of several sessions of civic education towards political capacitation, is essential to tackle our main goal of creating a Local Action Group that brings together local power bodies, but also to create groups of residents who can represent their communities in the forum. As a result of the process of both letters of demand and comitment, we are also strengthening the role of the community as transformation agents of the territory in order to share responsibilities

The project’s strength lies in the vast experience of its team in community engagement/capacitation projects, but also on the drive of this transdisciplinary collective to stand up against the growing discourse of hate, directed especially at the Roma community.
For this reason we’ve created this taskforce that crosses distinct and complementary knowledges, such as Architecture/Urbanism, Anthropology, Plastic Arts and Theatre and Sociology focused on this project of political emancipation.
The LPRCI (Local Plan for Roma Community Inclusion) promoted by the partner Municipality is currently being elaborated, based on a proximity work, which allows us to have a socio-spatial diagnosis and a basis of trust established with the community that we intend to strengthen with the project.

Consultancy specialized on Roma ethnicity: 1000e
Workshops of political training:1500e
Graphic Design: 2000e
Sensorial and memories cartographies, photovoice:7000e
Collection of stories and memories: 7500e
Audiovisual, production and edition of a video documentary: 7000e
Material, equipments and volunteers for 2 community celebration moments:6000e
Materials for production and development of artistic totem: 1500eur
Travel and food: 1500e

We are receptive to any feedback to improve our idea. Every comment is important! We are trying to take a small but efficient step to solve an old problem in the social municipal neighbourhoods of the region, the isolation and discrimination of the Roma community. EVERYBODY IS WELCOME!