An economic and cultural socio-ecosystem connecting the countryside and the city

Photo by Iñigo De la Maza from Unsplash

ACCTING aims to understand the impact of Green Deal policies on vulnerable groups, prevent inequalities, and produce knowledge and innovations to advance behavioural change at individual and collective levels for an inclusive and equal European Green Deal. This bottom-up initiative was collected by Blanca Callen Moreu within ACCTING’s mapping of inspiring practice cases, within Biodiversity and Farm to Fork research lines. Read our report on all 693 mapped initiatives. 

 

 

Kilombo, Spain

An exemplar of inter-cooperation

Kilombo is a collaborative project between the cooperatives LaFundició, Keras Buti, Tarpuna I Voltes, the association Keras Buti and the Distributor Ecocentral. 

The initiative strives to build a new social, cultural and economic ecosystem where the countryside and the city are connected, production and consumption are brought closer, and a new form of community is built. One of the founding cooperatives La Fundició specialises in developing methods of conviviality. Another one, Keras Buti, contributes by recovering and updating traditional Romani knowledge and practices and linking them to circuits of value production within the social and solidarity economy. In other words, they are inspired by the local Roma community to build sustainability while empowering migrant people, women and the Roma communities.   

Ensuring sustainability and empowering communities  

The initiative has several activities. Among these:  

• Runs a 2-hectare farm dedicated to organic farming and eco-social transition. While the first provides food and job opportunities for the Roma community, the latter refers to enlivening “rurban” imaginaries and practices, including but not limited to sustainable beekeeping, bio-construction, and vegetable fibres.    
• Researches plant fibres, their role within the ways of life of the Roma people, and their aesthetic and material potentials.   
• Recovers and enhances the value of the neighbourhood’s agricultural past and relates it to current organic production in the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park  
• Runs a community kitchen restaurant committed to sustainable food systems and food sovereignty. In addition, the kitchen restaurants generate employment opportunities for vulnerable people, such as migrants or young people from the Roma community   

• From April to June 2021, they organised workshops to learn how to compost and make an urban vegetable garden. Beyond the workshops, the project envisages the continuity of the action so that the compost bins built in the civic centres will be used to process and reuse the organic waste from the La Suculenta kitchen restaurant. Likewise, the compost bin at the Institut Escola Gornal will be used in the school canteen. The one at the Casa de la Reconciliació will compost the waste generated in the Conserves Litorals kitchen space.  
• Promoted sustainable mobility, which includes a cycling services project.   

Learn more about the initiative  

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