The municipality of Amadora is located in Lisbon North Metropolitan Area and is a major residential suburb of Lisbon and part of the urban conurbation. It is a medium-sized city in terms of population with 178,169 inhabitants as of December 2017 with a small territory of 24 km2. In the 1970’s, Amadora saw high levels of immigration- both from rural Portugal and also immigrants and returnees from former colonies in Africa.
Amadora is the lead partner in this network. It is a diverse highly urbanised municipality with strong experience in regeneration and integration projects. It has also an active member of various European networks and is an active member of the Council of Europe’s Intercultural Cities network. It was recently Lead Partner in the URBACT Action Planning Network, Arrival Cities.
Although being a relatively new municipality (created in 1979), Amadora has transformed through large-scale urban regeneration, including major schemes of housing renewal and infrastructure and transport investments. This has been combined with investment in social regeneration and policy initiatives, particularly in the field of education, family policy and inclusion of immigrants. It was within this context of a diverse, dynamic and multicultural city that the good practice, ‘Do Not Feed the Rumour’ was developed and implemented. It was found that there were negative and unfounded rumours about migrants and immigration circulating and being perpetuated by the media. The deconstruction of the negative stereotypes about immigrants and about the city of Amadora was fundamental in order to change the image of the city and its inhabitants.
- The Amadora good practice “Do not feed the rumours”:
Do Not Feed the Rumour was developed and implemented from 2014-15, through Amadora’s participation in the Council of Europe (CoE) project “Communication for Integration: social networking for diversity (C4I)”. Based upon practice originally developed in Barcelona, this programme brought together a network of 11 cities from 7 European countries. (Amadora, Loures, Bibao, Sabadell, Limerick, Botkyrka, Nuremberg, Erlangen, Lublin and Patras) to learn from Barcelona’s experience and develop their own anti-rumour campaigns.
Using Barcelona’s experience, Amadora produced their own bespoke approach to an anti-rumour strategy. The approach represents primarily a strategy for directly and assertively addressing the issue of prejudice and misinformation through dispelling rumours and deconstructing stereotypes.
Additionally, the practice fosters an appreciation of diversity and social cohesion through both the sharing of information and integration activities. While the anti-rumour practice can be applied to any form of prejudice and perception change, in the case of Amadora, the focus was on prejudice towards migrants and migration.
The two main objectives were to:
● Contribute to the promotion of cultural diversity and social cohesion through the deconstruction of rumors, stereotypes about immigrants and the city of Amadora.
● Promote a change in perceptions, behaviors and aptitudes towards immigrants and towards the city of Amadora.
The project in Amadora involved 75 organisations and reached about 2,500 people. The Municipality was able to second a member of staff to act as local network co-ordinator.
Rumourless Cities Story Blog 