A neighbor of Vallecas has been cast to Google. Juan Carlos Crespo suggested the Internet giant a name for the esplanade –even without baptism– which brings together dance with your group Bachata Free Madrid. If you are looking for on Google Maps this open space attached to the metro Valdecarros figure like Parke dance BLM. “I parke to save a letter”, subtract transcendence Crespo. “Good, and by identity. With k is more of Vallecas”, he adds. Some groups of this district worker for the east of Madrid used the k in their names as a symbol of rebellion.
The group Bachata Free Madrid (BLM) has been growing since it was formed in 2015. In the last year have found another way to add supporters to his appointment of the Wednesday in the parke. Is called do you Have Salt?, an app that puts in contact to neighbors of the same neighborhood. There are those who are looking for someone who will take care of the pet or the plants in the summer; some use it to give notices as the opening of a new local trade, and others, as if it were a social network.
Sonia Alonso, founder of the app that connects neighbors do you Have Salt? Victor Sainz
Olivia Brook is an example of the latter. Has 38 years old, lives in Vallecas since 2008, and five months ago he wrote in the bulletin of this application: “This Friday at 9 I will be in the bar Congosto 47. Come who you want.” It presented three girls. “There might have been no one,” and laughs out loud. Of that first meeting emerged a group that now has a dozen members. Mostly singles, although it is picking a new partner. “We’re here all the day. Sometimes we go on of hands”, tells the lianta, as you know the rest by its easy to build plans. Have been in Toledo and Segovia travel. “Now we want to go to London,” explains in front of a top of fried anchovies on the bar that takes the name of the street on which it is located.
do you Have Salt? works in Madrid and Barcelona and the outlying towns of these capitals. Account with 90,000 users that have validated their identity and address, critical for not falling fake profiles. Each district is divided into neighborhoods to facilitate the communication and the encounter: in Vallecas, 3.821 neighbors use the platform. “The size of a neighborhood delimits the fact that you can go walking from the home of a user to the other”, explains Sonia Alonso, who lived 11 years in Berlin and from there was brought the idea. The app is a subsidiary of Nebenan, which emerged in Germany in 2015. Alonso was in charge of launching the Spanish version a year ago from Madrid. Formed in marketing and market research, this barcelona 35 years I was tired of working for an american multinational. “Were you looking for something more social,” he says. Alonso attended to refugees in the abandoned airport Tempelhof, the place that hosted a part of the great wave that came in 2015. “Okay, do you Have Salt? it is not an NGO, but it helps the society”, he argues.
Combat the loneliness
We tend to associate loneliness with the elderly but affects all ages. “There are young people very alone. Call to a door is difficult, but send a message by an application is not that much,” says Alonso, who advocates not to demonize social networks. “We’ve gone a little out of hand, but utilicémoslas to the contrary. People want to do things, get out. It is that they lose their fears and prejudices,” he says.
Rosa Garcia, teacher of 56 years, he lived in the Ambassadors until a year ago, when it was separated from her husband and moved to Vallecas. Was accustomed to stroll through his old neighborhood and say hello to some people and to others. “I was with my children, spoke with everyone. But the change of zone cost me a lot. And look at that, I’m not stopping”. Has found support in the group dance. “He had a back problem and dancing has helped me a lot. The first few days I was going to even with crutches,” says Garcia. “I am enormously grateful to these guys,” he adds. Thereupon Diego Reberdito, administrator, and professor of the bachata group and also separate, grabs his hand in a show of affection. “It is made a rose”, the praises in the bar Congosto 47 in front of the founder of do you Have Salt? and Brook, the leader of the group of friends.
Olivia Arroyo, Juanjo Fernández, Diego Reberdito, Rosa Garcia and Sonia Alonso provided in the bar vallecano Congosto 47. Victor Sainz
The group of bachata –and-salsa, merengue, and kizomba– welcomes dancers with and without notions of all ages, an example of integration between generations. Saturday meet in the cerro del Tío Pío, known popularly as the seven tits, and on Wednesday, on the esplanade of Valdecarros. Before they did the Removal, but it is prohibited. “The market of Dona Carlota, we suggested that we go there to dance. So we encourage the local businesses,” says Reberdito wearing a white pants ethereal and spacious.
Juanjo Fernández, another of the members of the gang formed by Arroyo, appears at the headquarters, as they call the bar Congosto 47. Nothing more to enter, lianta he speaks of the dance group. She just found out but has already warned that it will roll to a friend to spend a day testing. “You know I’m in for a bombing,” says Fernandez. “No one comes to flirting… Man, those who come to that you see them quickly,” says Reberdito, a civil servant in a Immigration office.
get to Know a neighborhood by the bulletin board
Account Alonso that the board of the app for the neighborhood of Lavapiés, south of Madrid, is full of social events. In the Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), the people with the per capita income is highest in Spain (25.957 euros, according to the National Institute of Statistics), there are plenty of ads for pet care. In Leganés, dormitory town south of the capital, highlighting new neighbors who want to make friends. In Argüelles, located in the prosperous Chamberí, Olof Eyebrows, of 25 years, trained with a friend a reading club. Are a dozen neighbours in a terrace silent or in a café every two or three weeks to discuss a book. “Argüelles [nearby College Town] is home to many students coming and going. This application helps to make a neighborhood,” says this graduate in Political Science, Tenerife, name Swedish, in homage to the social democratic politician Olof Palme, and that also has created in the app for a group to play board games.
Iris Schippels, the second by the left, along with their girlfriends that is left to do crochet in a cafe in Barcelona. Juan Barbosa
Another neighbor that passes it well with their new friends is Iris Schippels. German, 54 years, resident in Barcelona, has served as a do you Have Salt? to create a group of lovers of crochet. All the weeks are between five and ten women to spin, either in a park or in a coffee shop when hace a lot of heat. “Barcelona is great. It costs a lot to find people,” he explains. “I also use Facebook and Instagram, but to meet neighbours, this application is great,” he says. The app continues its expansion neighborhood: according to Sonia Alonso, will perform in Valencia from September.
Brigade neighborhood cleanup
Xàbia net between tots is another initiative that brings neighbors through a digital platform to improve the image and the coexistence, in this case of a whole people. A few friends of Jávea (Alicante) created a group for citizen participation in clean areas of low traffic in which some of the locals a little concerned shed waste. Have cleaned drains natural, such as the going towards the canal of Fontana, riverbeds flooded by the storms and have removed reeds and mud which the rain crept up the beaches. The children of the volunteers tend to join these days: the best way to raise awareness to the future generations. 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 neighborhoods and towns.
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