Students on the course, which will include both theoretical and practical components, will learn how to carry out the repair and maintenance tasks typically undertaken at the Bicing warehouse

The course is held by Serveo and BSM in partnership with the Làbora Programme of the Municipal Institute of Social Services (IMSS) of Ajuntament de Barcelona, Barcelona Activa and the organisations Fundació Surt and Intermedia Ocupació

Bicing is launching a new edition of its Vocational School, a training programme for disadvantaged people. Like last year, this mechanics course is solely for women and seeks to help them break into a male-dominated profession. 

The course is held by Serveo and BSM in partnership with the Làbora Programme of the Municipal Institute of Social Services (IMSS) of Ajuntament de Barcelona, Barcelona Activa and the organisations Fundació Surt and Intermedia Ocupació.

‘Initiatives like the Vocational School reinforce our commitment to equal opportunities and improved access to employment,’ said Laia Bonet, Chair of BSM and First Deputy Mayor of Ajuntament de Barcelona. ‘As well as providing technical training in bicycle mechanics, the programme helps participants access a traditionally male-dominated profession, helping to reduce the gender gap in the field of sustainable mobility,’ explained Bonet, who also highlighted that ‘BSM is committed to making Bicing a more accessible and equal-opportunities setting, which entails ensuring that everyone has the same opportunities when it comes to starting and pursuing a career in this area.’

Roger Junqueras, manager of UTE Pedalem, a joint venture between Serveo and PBSC: ‘The Vocational School is one of the initiatives through which Serveo has been contributing for years to the cities in which we operate. We are proud to be able to do this in Barcelona, especially through an initiative that is so closely linked to our Bicing service. This project enables us to offer opportunities to people in various groups at risk of exclusion, particularly women, in a profession that is highly sought-after due to the importance of shared and sustainable mobility in our society.’

Participants will receive 35 hours of theoretical training imparted by staff at the training consultancy Hedima, as well as 85 hours of hands-on training with Bicing’s mechanical team. Both parts of the course will be held at the Serveo-Pedalem’s offices and workshop in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. 

The programme will give 12 women the opportunity to learn how both traditional and electric bicycles work and how to carry out the repair and maintenance tasks typically undertaken at the Bicing warehouse. Students will also gain job search skills and resources during the course, training them for a profession that is currently suffering from a serious shortage of qualified talent. In fact, three participants of the last edition of the Vocational School for Women joined the Serveo-Pedalem workshop after the course. 

The free open-air exhibition is located at the Moll de Mestral wharf and comes as a result of BSM teaming up with the Fundació MAPFRE and the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) to bring photography and the performing arts to the Port Olímpic   

The display features a selection of 22 images from Bravo, the project by Colombia’s Felipe Romero currently being exhibited at the KBr Fundació MAPFRE Photo Center

The Port Olímpic has been hosting a new photo exhibition since Thursday as part of the collaboration agreement between BSM, the Fundació MAPFRE and the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) to bring photography and the performing arts to the port.
It features a selection of 22 images from Bravo, the project by Colombian KBr Photo Award winner Felipe Romero Beltrán currently being exhibited at the KBr Photo Center. 

The work of Felipe Romero Beltrán (Bogotá, Colombia, 1992) can be placed at the boundaries of documentary photography and shows a special interest in territories that have been or continue to be sites of tension, conflict and visual reflection. The images that make up Bravo focus on part of the 1,100 kilometres of this river that acts as the border between the USA and Mexico, the part nearest to Monterrey. According to the artist, life here revolves around a wait that might last months or years or may never even come to a conclusion. This movement not only affects Mexicans, but also people from Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, reaching the final stage of a long and arduous journey.

Port Olímpic, a new cultural and family space in Barcelona

During the course of the year, the Port Olímpic will be hosting two more photography exhibitions as part of the alliance between BSM, the Fundació MAPFRE and the ICUB. The port will also be hosting concerts and dance displays linked to the exhibitions in place at the time. These activities come under the umbrella of KBr Live and are being organised in collaboration with the Conservatori del Liceu and the Institut del Teatre. In addition, April brings the start of a programme of workshops on the art of photography, every Saturday morning.

Through initiatives such as these, the Port Olímpic moving further to its goal of becoming a space where people can enjoy culture in the city. The port has hosted various cultural and family activities since it reopened in July, including part of the programme for La Mercè, Christmas activities, the first concerts in the KBr Live cycle and more.

A total of 98 juveniles and 254 larvae were released into streams in the Montseny massif in February to help towards the long-term survival of this critically endangered endemic amphibian

These releases, totalling more than 4,000 individuals since 2010, are part of the Montseny Brook Newt Recovery Plan, promoted by the Catalan Government Ministry for Territory, Housing and Ecological Transition, with the support of Zoo de Barcelona, Barcelona Provincial Council and Girona Provincial Council

As part of the recently approved Montseny Brook Newt Recovery Plan, 352 individuals of the species (Calotriton arnoldi) bred in captivity were released into their natural habitat in February. Over 4,200 individuals have been released into streams in the Montseny massif since 2010, the goal being to guarantee the survival of this endemic species, considered to be in critical danger of extinction according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Participating in the initiative are the Catalan Government Ministry for Territory, Housing and Ecological Transition, Zoo de Barcelona, Barcelona Provincial Council, Girona Provincial Council and the Calafell Environmental Research and Education Centre (CREAC), as well as the Montseny Natural Park and Biosphere Reserve. 

The Montseny brook newt is in an extremely vulnerable situation and is included in the Catalogue of Threatened Native Wild Fauna (DECREE 172/2022) as a species in danger of extinction. 

Given the urgency, the Montseny Brook Newt Recovery Plan approved by the Catalan Government in August includes actions such as the ex-situ conservation programme (for breeding outside of the natural habitat) and the programme for creating new populations. The latter prioritises new streams identified according to ecological and feasibility criteria, such as the maximum size of the population they can hold, the number of individuals available to be reintroduced, the difficulty of managing the territory and the financial costs linked to restoring and monitoring the new populations. The goal is to maximise the number of new populations and population effects in a period of ten years.  

Reintroduction to strengthen existing populations 

Specifically, 98 juveniles and 254 larvae were introduced into streams in the Montseny massif on 19, 25 and 27 February, all of them of the western lineage, recently described as a new sub-species (Calotriton arnoldi laietanus). Following the established plan, which prioritises releases in the most suitable areas (not just in terms of the characteristics of the habitat, but also the ownership of the land), all releases have been carried out on publicly owned lands and in areas where the species had already been introduced previously. The specimens come from Zoo de Barcelona, the Catalan Government’s Torreferrussa, Bagà and Pont de Suert Fauna Centres and the Calafell Environmental Research and Education Centre (CREAC), all of which have their own breeding and growth programmes for the larvae of this amphibian. 

The monitoring exercises for the released newts are carried out at night, with the participation of forestry wardens from the Montseny Natural Park, who also collaborate in the selection of streams. 

Goal: to expand the species’ area of distribution 

The goals of breeding Montseny brook newts in captivity and later reintroducing them are, firstly, to maintain a gene pool that guarantees the species’ future and, secondly, to expand its area of distribution, which is currently limited to just eight streams in Montseny that total 12 kilometres. 

This unprecedented release in the area requires rehearsal, a biological monitoring process for all the populations reintroduced and an ongoing analysis to adapt future management and improve the results by a multi-disciplinary team of specialists and scientists. In addition, before accessing the streams, the biosecurity protocol has to be applied to avoid the transmission of deadly illnesses for the amphibian. 

The Montseny brook newt was discovered in 1979 and was initially confused with the Pyrenean newt (Calotriton asper). It was not until 2005 that morphological and genetic studies confirmed that this was a new species, the most threatened one in Western Europe.

Based on this situation, in 2007 a programme to breed the species in captivity was launched at the Torreferrussa Fauna Centre, and in 2015, Zoo de Barcelona, the Catalan Government, Barcelona Provincial Council, Girona Provincial Council and Forestal Catalana promoted an action plan to improve the conservation of the species. This plan applied for and obtained funding from the European Union LIFE programme which, between 2017 and 2022, enabled the LIFE Tritó Montseny project, coordinated by Barcelona Provincial Council, to be implemented with the goal of resolving the main threats to the species and guaranteeing its protection. 

Zoo de Barcelona has had a specific facility in operation since 2018 to disseminate this conservation project. The facility has information panels, videos and other interactive materials, and holds educational sessions on this and other species found in Montseny. 

The call is particularly aimed at projects headed by young researchers and contributing to the preservation of threatened habitats and species

The deadline for applications is 21 March 2025

Zoo de Barcelona, through its Foundation, is opening its 2025 grant call for research and conservation projects. The aim of the programme is to back initiatives by young researchers to develop projects that contribute to the preservation of threatened habitats and species. The selected projects must share the values of the Zoo and its Foundation, focusing on conservation, education and awareness relating to biodiversity.

In this 16th edition, one of the key criteria for selecting projects will be leadership by young researchers (pre or post-doctoral), the idea being that these grants also support the development of their research careers. The Zoo sees this as a key factor in a context where it is essential to guarantee generational renewal by promoting interest among new generations of professionals in this discipline. In particular, we need to foster and promote women’s presence as unfortunately women are still a minority in this field.  

The grants will generally be worth up to a maximum of €15,000 per project. The deadline for applications for this year’s call is Friday, 21 March 2025. Full information and the terms and conditions of the call are available in the Official Gazette of the Province of Barcelona (BOP), as well as on the Zoo website.

Joint effort on research and the conservation of biodiversity

The Zoo de Barcelona Foundation allocated over a million euros to these annual grant calls between 2009 and 2024. The grants complement in-house and collaborative research and conservation projects backed by the Zoo, strengthening its commitment to the preservation of biodiversity. 

More precisely, in recent years the grants have provided support for projects geared towards the conservation of native amphibians, among others the Iberian spadefoot toad, the monitoring of bats, and applied research on the well-being of Cetacea. 

On Sunday, 2 March, at 12.30 pm, Moll de Mestral will host a new free open-air concert linked to the KBr photography centre’s programme 

The concert, performed by the group The Bakery, will revolve around the José Guerrero exhibition A propòsit del paisatge which can be seen at the KBr Fundació MAPFRE photography centre until 18 May

On Sunday, 2 March, Port Olímpic will host a new concert as part of “KBr Live,” a cultural programme created through the agreement between Port Olímpic, Fundació MAPFRE, and the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) to integrate photography and the performing arts into the port’s family-friendly programming.

The concert will take place at 12.30 pm at Moll de Mestral and will be performed by The Bakery, a group of musicians from the Fundació Conservatori Liceu. The group will perform Italian songs by stars such as Domenico Modugno, Mina, and Marco Castello, as well as part of their own repertoire. It will once again be a concert inspired by the José Guerrero exhibition. A propòsit del paisatge, which can be seen at the KBr Fundació MAPFRE photography centre until 18 May.

“The Bakery” comprises:  

• Joana Craven – Vocals 
• Cesc Castaño – Guitar 
• Sergi Zaragoza – Keyboard
• Ot Granados – Bass
• Javier Agramonte – Drums

The “KBr Live” programme at Port Olímpic will continue throughout the year with concerts and other music and dance activities. In this way, the port moves forward in its goal of becoming a vibrant and dynamic space with cultural events and activities aimed at families.  

Tibidabo Amusement Park opens to the public again on Saturday, 1 March, with a Carnival parade, hot chocolate for everybody and a fancy dress competition open to all visitors

With the theme “Peak thrills”, the new season at Tibidabo continues to offer magical experiences for all the family  

Tibidabo Amusement Park is launching a new season on Saturday, 1 March, by celebrating the Tibicarnaval. A xaranga marching band will be welcoming visitors in the Panoramic Area and the area around the ticket booths from 10.30 am. When the park opens at 11 am, a Carnival parade will set off and make its way from the entrance to Plaça dels Somnis, where there will be hot chocolate for everybody. Participants in the parade will include the Tibidabo mascots. 

All those who turn up in fancy dress will have the chance to take part in a draw for four tickets to enjoy Tibidabo. 

Dubbed “Tibicarnestoltes”, playing on one of the Catalan words for “carnival”, the celebration will last all whole weekend long with a fancy dress competition. The competition is open to all visitors and will be held in Plaça del Jardí on Saturday and Sunday at 5 pm, during the show by the Tibidabo mascots. At that time, visitors will be able to take to the catwalk and participate in a Carnival parade. A panel made up of park staff and the park’s mascots will then award prizes for the most original outfits. 

Tibidabo, peak thrills

With the theme of “Peak thrills”, the park is getting a new season under way with the aim of continuing to offer magical experiences for all the family. Its 30+ rides and attractions, range of shows and unbeatable views of Barcelona continue to make the park a unique family fun site in the city. 

As ever, education and good causes will play an important part in the day-to-day activity of the park. During the course of the year, the programme at the park includes outreach activities on science, technology, the environment and robotics, aimed at schools and adapted for all age groups. These are the Science, Technology and Environment Educational Activities, the Robotics Educational Activities and Fisidabo. 

Over 20 events to support good causes are also planned at the park, such as Connecta’t a l’Autisme (Aprenem Autisme), Un Cop de Mà (Fundació Migranoderarena) and Posa’t la Gorra (AFANOC); in addition to Tibidabo’s partnership with Unicef Catalunya. 

Earlier opening times for the Rio Grande, Llaunes and Tchu-Tchu rides 

Tibidabo will be opening every weekend and on public holidays in March, April, May and June, as well as during the Easter holidays. As from 24 June, and throughout the summer, the park will be open from Wednesdays to Sundays. Once the school year gets under way, the park will be opening again at weekends and on public holidays, as well as during the Christmas holidays. 

The opening hours will continue to be from 11 am to 7 pm or 10 pm, depending on the time of year. This season, the Rio Grande, Llaunes and Tchu-Tchu rides for the littlest ones will open earlier, at 11 am.   

The jetties at the port will all use a floating design, ensuring the infrastructure adapts better to the effects of climate change, such as flooding or rises in the sea level

The Port Olímpic will remain fully operational during the work, which should take around a year  

A new stage of work gets under way at the Port Olímpic to condition the maritime infrastructure. Following the transformation process that regained over 20,000 square metres of public space, the opening of the restaurant deck and the new viewing point at the sea wall, as well as better connections with the Vila Olímpica and the beach, a series of improvements are now under way to improve the mooring facilities. 

The first of these improvements is already in progress and consists of replacing the five concrete jetties at the Moll de Xaloc wharf with floating versions. This will ensure these elements at the port are better adapted to the effects of climate change, such as flooding or rises in the sea level. 

The new jetties will also be more durable and easier to adapt to future variations in the distribution of boats inside the Port Olímpic. 

The three jetties at the Gregal, Mestral and Marina wharves, which already have floating models, will also be renewed, as will the water and electricity supply towers for boats. 

The First Deputy Mayor, Laia Bonet, noted that “the importance of this work, which besides ensuring greater comfort, safety and user experience for moorings, will make the Port Olímpic more resilient to the effects of climate change. The Port Olímpic has already had its sea wall reinforced to minimise the effects of increasingly frequent and ever more intense storms; now things are going a step further and it is having its jetties renewed to adapt them to rises in the sea level caused by global warming.” 

The work to replace the jetties entails an investment of 4.3 million euros. It should take around a year and will be carried out in stages, guaranteeing the Port Olímpic remains operational at all times.

The free outdoor performance will take place at the Moll de Mestral wharf on Sunday, 16 February, at 12.30 pm

The concert will be based around the José Guerrero. A propòsit del paisatge [José Guerrero. Concerning Landscape] exhibition, which is on at the KBr Fundació MAPFRE photography centre from 15 February to 18 May

On Sunday, 16 February, the Port Olímpic is hosting a new concert in the “KBr Live” series, a cultural programme resulting from the partnership between Port Olímpic, Fundació MAPFRE and the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) to incorporate photography and performing arts into the programme of family events at the Port.

Starting at 12.30 pm at the Moll de Mestral wharf, the Fundació Conservatori Liceu will be performing pieces inspired by the exhibition José Guerrero. A propòsit del paisatge [José Guerrero. Concerning Landscape], which is on at the KBr Fundació MAPFRE photography centre from 15 February to 18 May.

In honour of José Guerrero’s career in Rome, the city where he has lived for more than a decade and where he has produced much of his work, the concert will feature classic Italian songs from the 1950s to the 70s. 

• Sergio del Boccio: vocals 
• Diana Garcia: keyboard
• Elvira Barnadas: cello
• Andrea López: cello

The “KBr Live” programme is set to run throughout the year, offering a series of music and dance activities connected to events at the KBr photography centre and the Fundació MAPFRE Collections, following a recent agreement between Fundació MAPFRE, Port Olímpic and the ICUB to offer photography exhibitions, music, dance and photography-themed family activities at the Port Olímpic.

The Education Grief Toolkit is a groundbreaking initiative in Barcelona offering a set of activities, explanations and resources on grief and mourning for use with teenage students in the classroom

It was presented today at the Pati Llimona Civic Centre at an event featuring contributions from experts and other people involved in this area

The main aim of these activities is to give young people the resources they need to confront a reality that affects everyone while making them aware that, although universal, death can be approached and experienced in many different ways

Cementiris de Barcelona and the UNESCO Association for Interreligious Dialogue (AUDIR) today presented the Education Grief Toolkit, a teaching resource featuring a set of proposals, activities and explanations about grief and how to approach it. It is a groundbreaking initiative in Barcelona that seeks to address grief in educational settings. It is designed for use in schools with students from the third and fourth years of compulsory secondary education (ESO) to the first and second years of Baccalaureate, as well as students aged 14 to 18 in general.  

AUDIR and Cementiris de Barcelona are offering this educational resource to any schools in Barcelona wishing to avail themselves of it. In view of this, they presented it to the public today at the Pati Llimona Civic Centre. The event, which included a discussion on teenage grief featuring experts and other people involved in this area, was attended by Miquel Trepat, general manager of Cementiris de Barcelona, and Sergio Arévalo, co-director of AUDIR in Barcelona. The discussion featured Francesc Torradeflot, a Doctor of Theology and History of Religions; Merche Cuesta, Director of Emergency Services and Social Emergencies at Ajuntament de Barcelona (CUESB); Sofia Dengrà, a volunteer and psychologist at the AVES grief support and mutual assistance association, and Espartac Peran, a journalist at Televisió de Catalunya. 

A new resource to teach teenagers about grief in class

The toolkit has been developed by AUDIR, an organisation that fosters dialogue between people of different religions and beliefs in partnership with Cementiris de Barcelona and with the advice of individuals from a variety of religious traditions and non-religious beliefs in Catalonia. 

The toolkit approaches grief and mourning as a process of loss that can take place in a variety of situations, such as after death or a breakup, in connection with leaving one's country or home, or even after losing a part of oneself. It is always treated as an ongoing process because it is not an event that lasts a single moment but a personal journey or even a group journey, as the Education Grief Toolkit can also be used to address some aspects of collective grief. The idea is to view grief and mourning as a process of adapting to a new reality without the person or thing that has been lost, treating it as a time of transformation in which everything is in constant change. Adolescence is itself a crucial stage of life marked by change. This is why this joint project by AUDIR and Cementiris de Barcelona is specifically aimed at teenagers, on the basis that this may be a good time to discuss grief and mourning with students whose transition to adulthood, leaving their childhood behind, also involves grief of sorts.

The Education Grief Toolkit includes a pack for students with brief explanations to enable them to do the activities, a virtual pack for teachers with more comprehensive information to provide additional context for classroom work if they consider it necessary, and additional materials in the form of fact sheets and visual resources.

The structure of the Education Grief Toolkit is divided into four distinct blocks containing various activities grouped by section and subject area. The first block covers the life cycle and all those things that we associate with life, which helps us to understand death better. The second block explores religious diversity and funeral rites. The third and longest block addresses grief and mourning, and in the fourth one, students discover cemeteries as an integral part of daily life and the urban landscape that reflects one or more of the ways in which each society understands and experiences death. 

AUDIR is the UNESCO Association for Interreligious Dialogue, a multi-belief Catalan public organisation that has been declared as being of public benefit and in which diverse beliefs and convictions are valued and respected. Its activities foster knowledge, dialogue and cooperation both between the various religious denominations and between them and non-religious beliefs in Catalonia.