Spain: Social integration enterprises with ‘inclusive capitals’

A Catalan savings bank launched a programme called Capital for Inclusion a couple of years ago. After widespread success in Catalonia the programme will now be extended to the rest of Spain. Capital for Inclusion supports economic activities with a great social impact that can bring about co-operation between the third sector and the economic and business world.

The programme is addressed to labour integration enterprises and organisations, to special employment centres and to social entrepreneurs, its aim being to contribute to reducing social exclusion. The programme intends to achieve a medium and long term consolidation of enterprises funded through new financial methods. This will involve three different stages: when a new initiative is under examination, when is has to start operating and when it has clear prospects for growing further.

The programme also intends to create 10 new social enterprises by the end of the year. The budget for 2006-2009 is 10 million euros.

Ravaltext is an example of a new enterprise. It is a Barcelona based integration enterprise that has been working since 2005 for the labour integration of women who face a serious risk of exclusion. While trying to accomplish this aim, the enterprise is also working for the recovery of dressmaking, a profession that was once of great importance in Barcelona.

Ravaltext is an example of co-operation between the non-profit sector, represented by SURT, a female association working for social integration and the organisation managing the project and the Fundació Tot Raval, which launched the project, the private sector through individuals who have historically been linked to trade and business in the neighbourhood where Ravaltext is located, and the financial sector.

Ravaltext is an example of good practice within the Capital for Inclusion programme. The enterprise mostly deals with clothes mending for shops, fashion chains and private individuals. It is also involved in training related to industrial dressmaking in order to help its female workers develop their own integration pathways.

In addition, Ravaltext intends to be an enterprise in which quality and corporate responsibility are of the utmost importance. It is committed to offering those women in difficulties a decent job. It is also conceived as an intermediate enterprise, as it wishes to serve as a bridge towards the labour market and to contribute to a sustainable social and economic development of the neighbourhood where it is located.

More info:
Caixa Catalunya: obra social