For years now it has been the neighbors themselves who illuminate the streets of the Raval at Christmas. Literally. The #RavalKm0 project has been designing for many winters a Christmas lighting that reproduces the silhouettes of different neighbors of the neighborhood. This year, in a further step of the project, young people from the gypsy community have joined the party by creating lights that pay homage to their culture.
The lights will be turned on in a big party that will take place on Saturday, November 26, from 17.30 to 19.30 h, in the Plaza del Pedró. The celebration is open to the whole neighborhood and the general public, and attendees will enjoy a chocolate and a musical performance.
Lights for a rumbera Christmas
In the Raval neighborhood, on Cera Street, is the EcoMuseo Urbano Gitano de Barcelona, a community project to promote the reconstruction of the gypsy memory of the city. This November marks its first anniversary, so one of the activities has been the collective creation of the Christmas lighting.
There are four new arches created in collaboration with the young people of the Carabutsí Association, whose founding objective is the revitalization, dissemination and preservation of the culture of the gypsy community living in Catalonia. The new lights allude to their culture and their presence in the Raval.
Thus, the lights will represent the gypsy flag, a group photograph of the participants, one of the singer Peret and Tia Pepi, and finally an image of El Chacho and his piano.
#RavalKm0, lights from the neighborhood for the neighborhood
The #RavalKm0 project will hang 92 arches in 7 different locations in the neighborhood, putting special emphasis on illuminating darker areas of the neighborhood, with the aim of giving life to these spaces, making them pleasant to walk around and generating a sense of belonging to those who inhabit them.
RavalKm0 wants to promote the commercial and social revitalization of the Raval, while generating training and occupational opportunities in the neighborhood. It is a project that is the result of the collective work of different entities, institutions, groups and businesses in the neighborhood to build and apply a socially responsible philosophy, which aims to implement economically viable processes that generate real opportunities to improve the quality of life in the Raval and at the same time show its most creative, innovative and productive side.
This is how the new online guided tours through the neighborhood look like.
One of the novelties this year is the organization of routes with the eXplorins platform within the social and sustainable tourism project Ravalopoly. Ravalopoly is a project of the technological applicationExplorins with the aim of energizing and showing the richness of the Raval through interactive routes available to all citizens.
All routes are located in the universe of Ravalopoly under four categories: history, culture, commerce and restoration. Through the Ravalopoly application of eXplorins will be available the routes Christmas #RavalKm0, routes to walk the neighborhood and discover up close the project, the history and its protagonists. with images and information of the illuminated streets.