Based in Barcelona, Open Cultural Center Spain (OCC Spain) is an association that works towards the inclusion and empowerment of refugees and migrants by addressing their activities to both host country nationals and third country nationals.

The organisation has three main programmes of action. The first programme of action includes projects aimed towards providing information, raising awareness, sensitivity and cultural exchange between local and migrant communities throughout Spain from an educational and linguistic perspective. Through the Refuge Culture project, OCC Spain offers participative workshops and group dynamics in education centres, photo and arts exhibitions. Also within this programme of action OCC Spain coordinates a language educational project based on exchange between communities, which includes Arabic classes led by refugees hosted in Barcelona and Spanish/Catalan classes led by local volunteers.

The second programme of action is focussed on the labour inclusion of migrants and refugees in Barcelona. MigraCode Barcelona was launched in 2019 inaugurating this programme of action. It is a tech academy freely accessible to migrants and refugees. It aims to create labour inclusion for this community through teaching digital skills. At the same time, it fights the digital skills gap and diversifies the tech sector. Within the academy, two different courses are offered (IT support and web development), as well as employability skills training and several additional services such as psychological support to ensure the sustainability of students’ participation.

The third programme of action includes project management activities to support cooperation projects in Greece through which OCC Spain has set up four non-formal schools in refugee camps in the past two years. From Barcelona, the organisation manages project concept design, human resources, training, partnerships, finance and communication. The organisation manages 100 volunteers and 20 trainees every year. OCC Spain also undertakes the co-direction of research activities in the field of refugee education and inclusion and disseminates them in international summits and conferences. OCC Spain is an accredited EVS organisation.

Since its creation in 2017, Open Cultural Center has put cooperation with partners and the creation of networks at the center of its practices. OCC has been involved in several local, national and European projects (including several KA2 projects) with the aim of exchanging practices and expertise on the topics of migration and integration. Encouraging the creation of links and projects between organisations is one of our strengths.

OCC has experience in community building, through social and cultural activities such as language exchanges, documentary projections and talks, open to everyone. It is with the creation of this feeling of community that we aim to facilitate the integration of people with a migration background.