Two pilots on unwanted loneliness at a small Basque municipality
A pilot to address unwanted loneliness in residential building entrances in Bengoetxe, a local neighborhood, together with the rollout of the community connector role across the entire municipality, are the main pilots that Galdakao Zeugaz is testing locally in 2025.
Both initiatives emerge from an ongoing community deep listening process, through which the needs, ideas, and concerns of local residents and community stakeholders have been gathered. These prototypes are not one-off or closed solutions, but rather pilot experiences that make it possible to learn what works, what can be improved, and which new opportunities can be explored. They serve as a foundation for continuing to design new initiatives within the care experimentation portfolio that is being collaboratively developed in Galdakao.
Within this framework, a co-creation session was held on December 10, during which participants worked in groups to identify what changes would be needed to strengthen community life in Bengoetxe. Key issues included the lack of perception of neighbors as a support network, the need to create more spaces for social interaction, mistrust, and the importance of revaluing community life as the basis of collective well-being. Residents also reflected on how to expand and adapt the initiative to other neighborhoods in Galdakao.
This pilot arises from the need to imagine a different kind of community in Galdakao and to transform neighborhood dynamics by fostering cooperation and care among people who share the same building. As envisioned by participants, residential blocks can become spaces of mutual support and coexistence, where everyday needs can be shared and collectively addressed.
The initiative proposes concrete actions to make daily life easier and strengthen neighborly ties, such as helping one another with pets, creating communication groups and making better use of existing ones (for example, the building’s WhatsApp group), exchanging goods, collaborating on everyday tasks like taking out the trash, walking the dog, or doing grocery shopping, or simply accompanying and listening to someone.
Next steps include piloting the initiative in several buildings in Bengoetxe, creating a short guide for residential buildings interested in implementing it—incorporating the Bengoetxe case study—and organizing a joint working session to review what has worked and what has not, as well as to design possible ways of scaling the initiative to other residential blocks or neighborhoods in Galdakao.
Meanwhile, the role of the community connector is already being implemented as a new position within the public–community approach to care at the municipal level.
During the session, participants worked in groups to identify what changes would be necessary to strengthen community life in Bengoetxe through La Escalera. Key issues that emerged included the lack of perception of neighbors as a support network, the need to create more meeting spaces, mistrust, and the importance of reevaluating the community as the basis for collective well-being.
Neighbors also reflected on how to expand and adapt the initiative: what elements to add to make it work in Bengoetxe, where to start, whether it could be applied outside the building, and how to transfer it to other neighborhoods in Galdakao. The initiative suggests specific actions to make daily life easier and strengthen neighborhood ties, such as supporting each other with pets, creating communication groups and making better use of existing ones (e.g., the community WhatsApp group), exchanging goods, collaborating on everyday tasks such as taking out the trash, walking the dog, or shopping, or simply accompanying and listening to someone.
The next steps include running a pilot of the initiative in a building in Bengoetxe, creating a short manual for buildings that want to implement it, incorporating the Bengoetxe case study, and organizing a joint working session to review what has worked and what has not, and to design possible ways of scaling up the initiative to other blocks of flats or neighborhoods in Galdakao.
