The Salto del Eje program is an initiative promoted by the High Commissioner against Child Poverty, the Ministerio de Cultura and the Diputación de Barcelona. It aims to promote the social integration of young people at risk of social exclusion through the creation of short documentary films guided by professionals in the sector. The initiative has been an unprecedented success in the neighborhoods of La Salut in Badalona, Pare Ignasi Puig-El Xup in Manresa, Torre Romeu in Sabadell and Sant Ildefons in Cornellà de Llobregat.
A second promotion has recently started in the Cerdanyola neighborhood of Mataró, in the Santa Coloma de Gramenet Fund and in Camps Blancs in Sant Boi de Llobregat. The beneficiaries are young people between the ages of 12 and 20, almost all of whom are users of centers for minors who are at high risk of social exclusion.
In Mataró (Maresme), the activity takes place in the social center of the Espai Gatassa. There, the adolescents began to contribute ideas and debate the topics on which the documentary they would shoot should be about and which will later be entered into competition at festivals and film shows. To do this, in addition to educators, they have the help of professionals in the sector, such as the actor Armando Buika or the director Santiago Zannou, who has given them a short film creation and production workshop.
Surprising in this particular youth brainstorming mentality of the group of young people, exceedingly adult. It is also striking that one of the main concerns of adolescents, almost unanimously, is loneliness. Hence, they openly state that the adolescent group could end up being a new space for cohesion, precisely one of the objectives of the programme.
Other issues that the young people listed to convey through the film to record are death, perversion, violence in the family and fear of rejection, a suggestive amalgamation of social problems that gives a clear idea of the vulnerability in which these adolescents are submerged.
"It is an opportunity to raise awareness of the problem and the complex life of adolescents," says Fran Sánchez, 16, who lives in a juvenile center in Mataró. "We want to touch on a taboo topic such as child abuse in the family," she adds. It will be a documentary with "many intimate and profound proposals," says Aisha García, 15, who acknowledges that the project "will help us tell what many times we do not dare to express." They all agree on one wish: "May the group continue."
The Salto del Eje program recognizes the transformative potential of culture to improve social cohesion and favor the promotion of talent, thanks to the learning and development of new skills that also help to improve emotional well-being.
It is estimated that 500,000 viewers will see the short films made in the program through the stable circuit of theaters and cultural spaces in the territory.
The action is included in the transforming project Neighborhoods and Communities: Engines of Social Transformation, promoted by the Barcelona Provincial Council, with more than 100 community intervention actions in 15 municipalities.
In Mataró, the project has not gone unnoticed by the municipal government either. The Councilor for Education, Beatriz Delgado, affirms that this type of initiative should generate benefits in the neighborhoods "if we are capable of channeling the concerns of these young artists."
