We participate in the event “Innovation for Recovery” by elDiario.es

May 7, 2025 – This Wednesday, May 7, we participated in the event “Innovation for Recovery. Rebuilding Valencia after the DANA floods, which was held at Florida Grup Educatiu in Catarroja, one of the cooperative centers affected by the catastrophe. The event, promoted by elDiario.es and the Placemaking Europe Foundation, brought together international experts, representatives of social organizations, and political leaders with the goal of sharing proposals to rebuild the territories affected by the DANA on October 29.

During the meeting, the results were presented of a survey conducted with 1,424 residents of the affected areas. As explained by Ramon Marrades, director of Placemaking Europe, more than half of the participants (54.1%) opted to rebuild in a completely different way, with a new territorial and urban approach. 85.8% considered that stricter urban planning is very important to prevent future catastrophes, and 72.6% highlighted the urgency of improving climate resilience.

The director of our Foundation, Julio Huerta, participated in the first round table ‘Innovation for Citizen Participation’ which aimed to analyze how active citizen participation can contribute to community reconstruction and collective resilience. This discussion was moderated by elDiario.es journalist Laura Martínez and also featured the participation of Borja Ramírez, spokesperson for the Local Emergency and Reconstruction Committees; May Ibáñez, representative of the Valencian Federation of the Music Industry – Cànter project; Gabriella Gómez-Mont, founder of the Laboratory for the City (Mexico City) and international expert in participatory processes, civic innovation, and urban futures; as well as representatives from various social organizations, neighborhood groups, and entities in the field of democratic innovation.

Huerta emphasized that one of our challenges as a Foundation is to create independent community spaces to put them in the hands of the community: “These will be the future social Coordination Centers (Cecopi), they will be the ones to act again, as they did during the pandemic and in the October 29 flood, the ones who organize the first response. This does not mean that we do not need the State, we do. We need financial resources and to rebuild trust, because without trust, a future for the region, a shared project, cannot be built. The challenges of the future cannot be faced solely by the administration or private enterprise; we need organized civil society. Our planet is at risk, and democracy is at risk.”