Above all, we are a network built on trust, a community of trust.
THE CHALLENGE
Many women face significant barriers to sustaining their professional paths, particularly when balancing academia and motherhood — especially in fields like urbanism and public projects often based on short-term contracts or fellowships. These challenges are further intensified for migrant women, single mothers, and those in precarious working conditions, such as researchers or freelance professionals. When these layers intersect, the obstacles multiply. A GRUPA emerged as a response to these realities, aiming to ensure that qualified women can continue contributing to and leading meaningful urban transformations.
THE IDEA
To address these challenges, A GRUPA developed a cooperative methodology rooted in care and adaptability. At its core lies the principle of rotation and sharing — a system of alternating roles and collective responsibilities that enables members to balance family, academic, and professional demands, ensuring project continuity even during periods of high personal workload. This approach is grounded in Global South and feminist perspectives, which centre the real conditions and constraints of everyday life as a fundamental part of project planning and management. Today, A GRUPA brings together urban professionals based in various regions of Portugal and beyond, navigating constant mobility. This methodology has been applied in most of our initiatives, including URBiNAT, a Horizon 2020 project led by the Environmental Management Division of Porto’s City Council. In this case, A GRUPA was responsible for the participatory dimension of developing a new urban park. Over four years, the team — mostly composed of mothers, including municipal staff — navigated three pregnancies, two births, and the conclusion of several doctoral theses, without compromising project delivery. This experience highlighted the strength of a technical practice anchored in mutual care and underscored the crucial role of middling public servants in making collaborative innovation work.
THE IMPACT
A GRUPA’s methodology proves that it is possible to lead complex, long-term public projects in harmony with personal life — when done collectively. It shows that a “caring bureaucracy” and institutional creativity can emerge and thrive when feminist and inclusive practices are placed at the centre of the process. Our work not only delivers all expected project outcomes but also fosters cultural change within institutions, showing how they can operate in more inclusive and context-aware ways. This methodological praxis is essential to ensure the consistency and resilience of participatory processes, even when participants’ availability shifts — on all sides. It is a living example of how urbanism rooted in mutual care can be a transformative and sustainable practice, both within institutions and across municipal and systemic levels.