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Lisbon Municipality
Camara Municipal de Lisboa
Clara Frexes – President’s office
Praca do Municpio
1149 - 014 Lisboa
Portugal
www: www.cm-lisboa.pt
E-mail: clara.frexes@cm-lisboa.pt
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LISBON CITY HALL -
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AFFAIRS
Established in 1990, the Department of Social Affairs has developed and strengthened response programs for the most vulnerable social groups (children and young people at risk, senior citizens that risk exclusion, disabled people, homelessness, and victims of violence, immigrants and ethnic minorities) that aim their social inclusion in the city’s social development.
At present the Department of Social Affairs pretends to continue this work under the following axles:
- To study and diagnose the community’s social problems;
- To plan and execute operation and social development programmes;
- To develop response programmes for the most vulnerable groups: children and young people at risk, senior citizens that risk exclusion, disabled people, homelessness, victims of violence, Social Inclusion Income beneficiaries, immigrants and ethnic minorities communities;
- To program the construction and maintenance of social equipments;
- To encourage the support of social solidarity networks and enhance abilities and competencies of local groups and institutions;
- To cooperate with social support institutions (grants, space granting and other ways).
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The Department of Social Affairs has 3 Divisions, which articulate and complement each other, according to the programs and projects of social intervention:
1.) The Division of Research and Planning supports decisions related to equipments and social services planning, to the cooperation with social support institutions and to the technical verification of projects, identifying and pinpointing the city’s social resources, in order to keep update demographic information of different areas. It annually publishes a document to frame the Department’s activities “Lisboa Social“– Resources Guide. It organises and processes relevant information to the Department’s activity.
This Division is in charge of a Documentation Centre (production of a bibliographical bulletin); cooperation support (collaboration protocols follow up, grants and space granting) organising monthly training on existing social problems in order to encourage constant update and qualification of human resources. The Department represents Lisbon City Council in several national and international partnerships such as Portuguese Network of Healthy Cities and Eurocities – Social Affairs Forum.
2.) The Division of Social Equipments builds health and social equipments, some in lodging areas, following the city’s population dynamics, such as the ones in the Furnas quarter, the Padre Cruz quarter, the Boavista quarter, and the Lodging and Day Centre in Quinta das Flores, amongst others.
Municipal programs such as Programa Casa Aberta (open door program), Escola Aberta (open school), Comissão Lisboa Cidade Aberta (Lisbon Open City Commission) and Acesso à Cultura por uma Cultura de Acesso (access to culture through a Culture of access), promote the abolishment of architectural barriers, in disabled person houses, in equipments, and in the city in a way to adapt them to its inhabitants and visitors, and consequently improve life conditions.
3.) The Division of Social Intervention and Social and Cultural Entertainment promotes programs and projects for specific population groups and dynamizes closer social intervention, carried out by 7 local development teams. These teams are placed throughout the city, so that they are closer to populations and giving priority to social lodging quarters.
Within programmes and projects that aim different population groups, we can highlight, to senior citizens, Lx AMIGO (Lisbon Friend) program, which supports the senior population through domestic repairs; the TeleAlarme (Tele Alarm) service, an emergency call service (24 hours a day) which promotes social support to people who live in isolation or lonely conditions; Training and actions in Movement, which is a project that promotes healthy aging, training Tai Chi Chuan and Therapeutic Dance Monitors; Senior Country Beach Action and social and cultural entertainment programs through dance parties, music shows (Fado), cruises in the Tejo river, visits to museums, etc.
To children, the Department of Social Affairs promotes the RODA Project, which dynamizes a network of 18 spare time workshops, the Country Beach Action, which provides holidays at the beach or at the countryside (10 days) to children aged between 6 and 12, carried out in partnership with the parishes.
To support disabled people, the department has adapted transportation vehicles (5 Buses), that prioritize children and young students transportation, assuring daily home to school transportation. It also dynamizes a Bank of Technical Help, witch grants support technologies on a temporary basis to people with special needs, in a way that allows a better mobility. The Operation Handicap Employment is a service that, through partnerships, enables social and professional integration for disabled people.
To promote employment opportunities to long term unemployed and young people looking for their first job, and to valorise other traditional crafts, there was created the Traditional Arts and Crafts School. Another school is already in project.
New problems related to people that risk exclusion due to mental illness are prioritary in the new projects.
The strategy adopted to operate social intervention programs is based on network effort, through the imprinting of the intervention and the setting of institutional partnerships, such as the Rendimento Social de Inserção (social integration income) and Comissões de Protecção de Crianças e Jovens (children and young people protection commissions), in which the Lisbon City Council participates through the Department (Social Network Program).
The creation of a Banco de Voluntariado para a Cidade de Lisboa (volunteer bank to the city of Lisbon) allowed inter- institutional relationship practices and promoted active citizenship practices.
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