Santa Coloma de Gramenet
is a municipality of about 133.000 inhabitants located within the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. In the 60's a heavy wave of immigration lead to largely unplanned urban growth. This had serious impact on the surrounding natural area, deforestation and pollution by solid waste. Santa Coloma has a very dense urban area, a marked lack of green zones and a young population with a high rate of unemployment and great difficulties in accessing professionally qualified jobs.
 
Against this backdrop, in 1994 the Town Hall set up the Suburban Ecological Restoration Programme, undertaken by two successive Vocational Training centres which successfully achieved the following goals:

 
1. The ecological restoration of six sites in urban fringe areas: in this way, previously uncontrolled waste points were transformed into leisure areas for the population, with minimum construction and later maintenance costs.
 
2. Unemployed young people between the age of 16 and 25 underwent specialised, environmentally-related vocational training, leading to an employment rate of sixty percent among participants on completion of the two years training cycle.
 
3. Neighbours' Associations played an active role in the programme, thus enhancing the relationship between citizens and the environment. Previous attitudes that had led to the degradation of the areas underwent positive change.

This experience establishes a novel strategy for environmental restoration involving the education, training and employment of young people along with the participation of civic groups to ensure that the fruits of the work carried out prove to be of lasting benefit. This plan of action can be applied to any city having limited financial resources, high human potential and a natural environment worth conserving for generations to come.

Santa Colona de Gramenet