On the 13th of July 2017, the BCN Antirumours Network training team organised a meeting with associations and experts at the Casal de Entidades Mas Guinardó with the goal of going further into concepts such as the intersectional and decolonisation perspectives. The BCN Antirumours Network is composed of associations, interest groups, individual members and Barcelona City Hall, and works on dismantling rumours and stereotypes around cultural diversity.

The “Train yourself through the Network” session was a gathering for knowledge sharing addressed to members of the BCN Network and to those associations and individuals interested in becoming so.

The training team responded to the associations requests for new tools to fight against discriminatory speech.

The day started with an “itinerary of activisms”, where everyone could share their own experiences with activists such as Wafae Moussaoui, psychologist and feminist, Norma Falconi, member of Sindillar, Bombo N’Dir, Human Rights activist, Nadia Jabr, activist,  and Rafael Buhígas, historian and collaborator  of Feminist Roma Women for Diversity .

Afterwards, there was a reflection exercise around the key ideas that came out of the  itineraries with Florencia González, expert in Rights and Political Science and  Rosa Lázaro, teacher and  pseudo-anthropologist.

In the afternoon, the dialogue established between Mariana Olisa, a journalist specialised in Black Feminism and Ana Giménez, an anthropologist specialised in history of the Roma People, brought to light the need to decentralise the feminist view.

The Antirumours workshops, which revolved around gender, migratory movements, antigipsyism and islamophobia, were a total success, having been facilitated by associations from  the training team within the BCN Antirumours Network.

The selection of topics responds to the need for further discussion, through the help of experts,  on current affairs which have an effect into the construction of discriminatory forms of speech.

The event ended with the drawing of some conclusions.

It is important to note the participation of Lola López, Commissioner for Immigration, Interculturality and Diversity, who praised the Network for its work during the last few years and encouraged the associations to keep on building a more and more diverse and intercultural city, free of prejudice and stereotypes.