the residents of The neighborhood of the Conception would form Government in four days. All have lost a bit in the great common project that have been undertaken in recent years: the rehabilitation of the sports facilities of The Deck, in Linear City (northeast of Madrid). Agreed to reduce the old basketball court to half to accommodate a space for BMX bikes (small, resistant, and single speed). Not obsessed with creating a green zone with banks, but that the adults occupy the bleachers of the football field, the same place that stop the teenagers from the school across the street. They have created a skate park where it is allowed the use of the scooter along with the skateboard and the big teach small. And the tracks have hosted outdoor activities for users of the centre, and they wander children.
Jorge Nuño, a lawyer by training and former president of the cultural association Countess of Venadito. Victor Sainz
“most of The proposals are sensible. Almost always we reached consensus,” says Jorge Nuño, the man of City-State Linear and outgoing president of the cultural association Condesa de Venadito, which led to this meeting point for children, youth and seniors. It is not his only achievement. The association, which in three years has 120 members, has organized the festival of culture and coexistence Deck Fest.
a practicing Attorney, formed in the spring of 2016, the association with Héctor Mateos, colleague always the Conce (shortening of barrio de la Concepción) and companion of the collective of graffiti artists, Unlogic. This last one has sucked the activism at home and “gave the rod” to your friend until you have created the “aso”, as they call it. “My old ones are sociologists and have a lot to do with the policy. I have always been told that we had to get together to get things done,” said Hector, 33 years old, the new president and with a profile more impetuous. Nuño, that when finished Right you already created a partnership in which target students from last year, drafted the bylaws and, along with a third member –the statutory minimum– was Countess of Venadito.
Nuño, of 36 years, is greeted with a good afternoon. Takes a folder of blue cardboard in one hand, he speaks with a moderate tone on the phone and dressed formally, as if it came from the court. It comes from the court. It’s that kind of neighbor that you’d keep a copy of the keys of the house with cruzártelo once on the landing. This madrid drafted a constitution lax that it should not be necessary to support majority voting and are not incorporated fees economic to promote the adhesion of more neighbors of Linear City, a district with 216.270 inhabitants, according to the Municipal Register of Madrid.
Adolescents, parents, and children share the sports facilities were refurbished last year. Victor Sainz
Hector, industrial designer, and muralist, described with heavy stroke the district: “middle class families settle near Arturo Soria, Latin americans are in the south, in San Pascual live gypsies and muslims do near the mosque of the M-30”. The district has an unemployment rate of 8.1%, according to the State Public Employment Service. Hector sums it up: “The association works for the culture and coexistence.” Three-fourths of the members present regularly at the meetings, many of them organized in the tracks themselves or in the door of the local city that they share with three other entities. “To open ourselves as much as possible to the neighborhood and more people to join,” says Nuño, that from little he understood the graffiti as “art and not vandalism”.
Everyone happy
Condesa de Venadito presented the proposal for the remodeling of the sports facilities of The Deck in 2016. They did so through a program of participatory budgets, the platform created by the previous Madrid city Hall to promote citizen initiatives. But when you have a pending lawsuit in order to transform that space in the paddle tennis courts was unsuccessful. “Less evil, didn’t make any sense. We were going to look like all aznarines” jokes Javi Spanish, one of the first members of the association and of the seven members of the collective of graffiti artists, who charge about 4,000 euros when a company commissions a mural realistic to complete in five or six days.
A boy’s usual tracks of The Deck teaches a child to skate. In the background, murals painted by the collective Unlogic. Victor Sainz
The following year, returned to present the dossier –the paddle tennis courts were not constructed by irregularities–. Here enters in scene Antonio Yeste, Toni, a young lad 15 years old that had developed an alternative proposal for the same space. “I designed a few planes at home with Photoshop in the skate park they had in mind. I even pamphlets to hand out to the kids,” says Toni, who has just turned 18 years old. “Served Me up to flirt”, he laughs. Nuño contacted him and convinced him to add to his candidacy. “We knew that there were kids who were spinning in a few modules of wood. We decided to include the proposal of Toni on our own. They are the future of the neighborhood”, explains this jazz lover.
The association conducted a campaign of collection of signatures –a way to get votes for his proposal–. Set up a table at the door of the supermarket and go to the bars to talk about the project. Fighting the digital divide of the elderly in direct contact. Toni joined the pamphlets that he handed out the convening power of the social networks among young people. The proposal was successful and the District board invested 190.000 euros in the facilities. Opened in the summer of last year. “In terms of design and location of the elements the result matched to the 95% that we proposed”, presumes the former president. Javi, who is a graphic designer, drew up some blueprints in 3D. And the father of one of the members of the association, architect, retired, made a few designs in Autocad. “The technicians of the town Hall alucinaron with the proposal,” says Nuño, who lives with his “young girl” in the neighborhood. “It has always been impossible to get me out of here,” he said.
Culture and sport
Nuno and Hector formed the association with the idea of remodeling the tracks but left a slit to carry out other social initiatives. The most successful is the Deck Fest, a festival of coexistence, culture and sport that was held for the third consecutive year last September and was attended by approximately 3000 attendees. During a day there were concerts of hip hop and dancehall, yoga classes, displays of graffiti, skate and BMX, and children’s activities. Throughout the year facilitating workshops of origami or teach how to play the flamenco cajon. Juan Garcia Pedre, 33 years old, is in charge of the latter and to develop new routes and other procedures. “They have become in a few machines in administrative law,” adds Nuño. “Pedre does not have the THAT. No need to be a lawyer or the host to get things,” says Hector, who plays the keyboard and records a monthly podcast of hip hop to give a voice to young people of the district.
Antonio Yeste, to the left, a fixed ‘skate park’ of The Deck and Miguel Monzón, subject to your BMX. Victor Sainz
Cristina Lobera, of 38 years, joined a few months ago to the association. “Would love to learn to do another festival like this for Carnival. It has helped Me to talk with neighbours they simply crossed the greeting in the portal,” says this engineer of mountains and mother of three children. Is in the process of forming a consumer group in the neighborhood –families come together to buy fruit, vegetable and meat producers small. “The association we leave the local to organize our meetings”, this leon seated in the Conce from seven years ago and paid 850 euros to rent for an apartment of two rooms with heating and a swimming pool, half an hour by metro from the Puerta del Sol. Your partner is already night on the slopes on a bike.
it takes almost all of life is Miguel Monzón, the Total. He came to the neighborhood 11 years ago and now has 30 and lives with his wife. It is one of the guys who dance the bike –as they call them to do stunts with it– on the track flatland BMX. “This sport has little reward. Until you catch level equal to spend three years”, says the Total, which works in a distribution company of bicycles of this type. If the Total is dedicated to something that you love, Viki Gomez is a professional of this sport. It was proclaimed world champion in 2010 of this modality. Although he now lives in Luxembourg with his partner, he spent much of his life in the Conce. The own skaters and bikers cleaned up the sports courts and near the trash bins purchased by the association to the curb for pick-up truck municipal.
Members of the cultural association Countess of Venedito (Ciudad Lineal, Madrid) in the facilities is The sports Deck. Victor Sainz
The association is not dependent on grants, did some box with a bar installed in the Deck Fest and at times have made money themselves –as when they hired the mandatory insurance of civil liability for € 400–. The mosque of the M-30, the largest in Spain, organizes an annual day of coexistence and has counted them. Graffiti artists, who are part of the association held free workshops in schools and in the center of the greater Panama Canal. Some retirees are passed to congratulate them on what they have achieved, others will point to the Condesa de Venadito. Do it to live the experience of being in a partnership. And help.
The ladder of life
The urban art also looks at Leon. The artist Carlos Álvarez Cuenllas along with her students of plastic of the colegio San José has become a ladder invisible in a point of interest of the city. Your therapeutic art has led them to paint 34 steps with positive statements such as “Respects to all” or “Thinks” in this corner of avenida de Álvaro López Núñez. The professor has been involved artistically the college in which he works, other areas of the city and trees to create awareness about the environment. This is one of the initiatives that groups FeliZiudad, the digital platform of Renault, which illustrates good practices aimed at improving the quality of life in cities.
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