Cultural, Recreational, Educational and Empowering Network Centers for Vulnerable and Low-income People

Background Information

The initiative is part of the powers in urban and town planning assigned to the Venezuelan legal framework to the Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas. Such a competition is implemented through the Caracas Metropolitan Strategic Plan 2020 (PECM2020) developed by the Metropolitan Institute of Planning Workshop Caracas (IMUTC), which proposes within its strategic intervention lines, achieving a city in motion, governable, productive, enterprising, environmentally sustainable, safe and integrated manner.

Goals of the Initiative

It aims to achieve an urban transformation in the metropolitan area of Caracas (AMC) promoting citizenship, social and spatial integration through the provision and consolidation of services and facilities in the densest self-constructed settlements (shanty towns) of the five municipalities that comprise it; to create the metropolitan network of cultural, recreational and entrepreneurship for vulnerable and low-income people, as science, culture, entertainment, new technologies and environmental protection are all in developed centers.

Parties and Partners to the Initiative

The network initiative is promoted in the PECM2020, developed by the IMUTC attached to the Metropolitan Mayor. In that sense, the pilot CUASD is managed by the Caracas Foundation for Life perceived contributions of the Metropolitan Mayor and makes alliances with national local authority (Municipio Sucre) and, working for example as seat of the Nucleus of Youth and Children Orchestras Julian Blanco, partnerships with educational institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in supporting training efforts and providing equipment, as in the case of Superatec. There are also partnerships with private enterprises. Miguel Otero Silva Foundation donated books to the library that served the immediate community of 112,400 people.

Resources Used for Implementation

To implement the initiative five strategies are established: connection, integration, empowerment, mobility and renewal. The pilot CUASD plan is the means to check the efficiency of the proposal and evaluate their ability to be replicated in future equipment AMC, therefore an autonomous figure administering and managing the operation was conceived. Additionally, urban pilot design plan was submitted to public tender towards ensuring the democratization of construction of the city, promoting the development of the initiative in public-public partnerships (local authorities) and public-private partnerships to ensure their sustainability.

Innovation for the Initiative

The metropolitan network of centers aims to expand the supply of equipment in the most disadvantaged sectors, based on the successful initiative made with the Library Parks of Medellin - Colombia that promote recovery and productivity of vulnerable environments, promoting coexistence and civic culture in quality public spaces, making them training centers and entrepreneurship to achieve inclusion and effective integration of its inhabitants with the rest of the city. The initiative was conceived as a revolutionary strategy to be applied in Venezuelan territory.

Innovation has been applied in

The initiative is driven by the IMUTC assigned to the Metropolitan Mayor, the highest authority in urban and town planning of the AMC. The proposed pilot by the PECM2020 is the Urban Center Environmental Simon Diaz, located in one of the densest informal sectors of Caracas, which has served as a reference in understanding computers axes of the initiative and to check the successes of the same in order to be replicable in other areas with similar conditions. They have established public-private partnerships for economic contributions, for example movie star pay for locating cell towers in the center spaces. And public-public partnerships, the center is home to the National Youth Orchestra and Children Core Julian Blanco, contributing to the National System of Orchestras.

Obstacles and Solutions for Innovation

The lack of economic resources has been the main obstacle to the progress of the initiative, as those who promote it (Metropolitan Mayor) do not have enough support to subsidize. In that sense, a model of a self-management budget with contributions of alliances arises public-public and public-private partnerships that will be coordinated by an autonomous administrative figure to ensure the sustainability of the center.

Outcomes and Assessments

The metropolitan network centers aim to improve the livability in informal settlements, provide them with quality public spaces for meeting and citizen coexistence, and improve the level of social development attributable to the project as soon as possible or immediately. The CUASD located in Petare, as a pilot plan, is the main goal achieved and the first step toward achieving a network, promoting the connection, integration, empowerment, mobility and urban renewal sector. IN just one year, they have resulted in 13 courses in different areas, trained 12,660 people, and also promoted cultural activities and talks in which 15,600 people participated.