Stadsdelslyftet Andersberg är ett omfattande projekt inom Gävle kommun med idag mycket viktiga ambitioner såsom att öka integrationen, skapa mer jämlika förutsättningar, att öka den upplevda tryggheten, samt att utveckla en modell för brett samverkansarbete med dessa och andra samhällsutmaningar i stadsdelar där det finns behov. Gävle kommun anlitade en forskargrupp vid Högskolan i Gävle för att bedriva följeforskning av projektet Stadsdelslyftet. Syftet med följeforskningen var att undersöka hur den nya mötesplatsen Andreassalens verksamhet bidrar till uppfyllandet av Stadsdelslyftets målsättningar, med ambitionen att generera forskningsbaserad kunskap som en grund för utvecklingen av verkningsfulla metoder för att åstadkomma ökad social inkludering och en socialt hållbar stadsutveckling. Forskningsmetoden har inkluderat semi-strukturerade intervjuer och fokusgruppsintervjuer samt enkätundersökning.  Resultaten visar att Andreassalen spelar en viktig roll i det samverkande samhällsarbete som bedrivs i Andersberg och att verksamheten har bidragit till uppfyllandet av flera av Stadsdelslyftets effektmål. Andreassalen fyller en funktion som ett områdescenter där kommunala aktörer, civilsamhällets föreningsliv, boende från lokalsamhället och andra stadsdelar, möts och interagerar och där en mångfald av aktiviteter organiseras. För att uppnå en socialt hållbar utveckling av Andersberg är det därför angeläget att Stadsdelslyftets och Andreassalens arbete fortsätter och vidareutvecklas. I det fortsatta arbetet att vidareutveckla Stadsdelslyftet och utarbeta en modell för liknande arbete i andra stadsdelar finns viktiga lärdomar att dra från arbetet med Andreassalen.

Stadsdelslyftet Andersberg is a comprehensive project within the municipality of Gävle with very important ambitions such as increasing integration, creating more equal conditions, increasing the perceived security, and developing a model for broad collaborative work with these and other social challenges in neighborhoods where there is a need. The municipality of Gävle asked a research group at the University of Gävle to conduct participatory research on the Stadsdelslyftet project. The purpose of the research was to explore how the new meeting place Andreassalen's activities contribute to the fulfillment of the Stadsdelslyftet project goals, with the ambition to generate research-based knowledge as a basis for the development of effective methods to achieve increased social inclusion and socially sustainable urban development. The research method has included semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews as well as a questionnaire survey. The results show that Andreassalen plays an important role in the collaborative community work conducted in the neighborhood Andersberg and that the activities have contributed to the fulfillment of several of the project impact goals. Andreassalen serves as a community center where municipal actors, civil society associations, residents from the local community and other city districts meet and interact, and where a variety of activities are organized. In order to achieve socially sustainable development of Andersberg, it is therefore important that the work of Stadsdelslyftet and Andreassalen continues and is further developed. In the continued work to further develop Stadsdelslyftet and develop a model for similar work in other city districts, there are important lessons to be learned from the work with Andreassalen.

India’s unorganized workforce consists of more than a million daily wage laborers and migrant (rural to urban) workers, a highly marginalized community residing in urban slums representing the rural poor. With the onset of COVID-19, the state directed a countrywide lockdown, which meant an overnight loss of employment and livelihood for this unorganized community. Starvation, disease, and resorting to violence were only a few of the side effects. Amidst this, ‘Jeevan Pravah’ (The stream of life), a crisis intervention project for support of unorganized labour in urban slums, emerged, initiated by a team of social work students, alumni, and teachers. The project is a response by social workers to those suffering extremely in the light of the pandemic, groups left vulnerable by the state’s actions. The project began in March 2020 with an outreach in urban slums of Mumbai and rural communities of Maharashtra, with 2000-4000 individuals assisted. This chapter documents the first-hand experiences of the social workers assisting corona-affected individuals through interviews, present social work strategies, and responses within the analytical framework of social work theory, critique the shortcomings of existing systems and state, and highlight a need for a shift in social work post COVID-19. 

The aim of this comparative study was to explore how community work is being undertakenin marginalized urban settings in Germany and Sweden, in relation to changing contexts ofrespective welfare models. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in neighborhoods inGävle, Sweden, and Paderborn, Germany, and were analyzed by abductive thematic discourseanalysis, using Atlas.ti and MaxQData. The results showed that community work in the respectivesettings is affected by lack of sufficient resources to meet increasing levels of social exclusion,related to ongoing transformation processes of the welfare regimes, and there is a lack ofcollective empowerment perspectives for social change.