Climate care shelters in Ciudad Arce: towards a caring and sustainable city

This project consisted in a diagnostic of everyday networks and to design a future climate care shelter, working with the Municipal Women’s Association of Ciudad Arce (ASOMMCALL), the Network of Women Human Rights Defenders of Ciudad Arce, and the Municipal Government of La Libertad Centro, in the district of Ciudad Arce, Salvador.

To elaborate a participatory diagnosis of community networks and the impacts of climate change, they were held several workshops: a community mapping of climate change impacts in their communities and in Ciudad Arce in general; a body mapping workshop to analyze how these impacts affect women’s bodies; and three exploratory walks to identify and analyze spaces that are part of the community care network and have the potential to become climate care shelters in the communities of Santa Lucía, Pequeña Inglaterra, Colonias Unidas, and San Francisco.

The workshops were developed from the body-land territory cosmovision, understanding the body as the first territory we inhabit – the physical medium through which we exist and live in the world – with our skin as a border, one that is in relation with other skins and bodies.

Based on the diagnosis of everyday networks and environmental impacts carried out by women from each participating community, and after identifying community spaces that already form part of a care network, proposals were developed to improve spaces with the potential to become climate care shelters in Colonias Unidas.