These are the free workshops you can attend in Malaga: how and when to apply

September is synonymous with back to school, and it also marks the start of the enrollment period for the Civic Education Workshops, offering 127 free workshops - 116 in-person across all city districts and eleven exclusively online - aimed at individuals over 18 years old.

The courses, organized by the City Council of Málaga through the municipal company Más Cerca, will be held in about thirty municipal centers and will offer 2,000 spots. The application period will open next Wednesday, September 10. There will be 32 different themes available such as computing, English, digital photography, mobile device management, drawing, tailoring, various types of dance, zumba, pilates, maintenance gymnastics, drawing or painting techniques, and crafts with clay or glass, among others.

The training, both online and in-person, will be conducted in two periods: the first phase from September 29 to December 19, and the second, from January 19 to June 19, 2026, with sessions lasting two hours per week, either in one session or two one-hour sessions, depending on the theme. The courses are free of charge although there is a registration fee of 25 euros for the first phase and the price for the second, for both renewal and new registrations, is 40 euros.

Registrations for the first phase will begin next Wednesday, September 10, at 10:00 AM and will end on Friday, September 12. Subsequently, from December 1 to 14, the renewal period for spots will be open. Meanwhile, for those workshops that have available spots in the second phase, the registration period will be from January 8 to 9. Registrations can be submitted online on the Más Cerca SAM website, although it is also possible to apply in person at some municipal centers.

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The local government has explained that the spots for each workshop will be filled "on a first-come, first-served basis" and will be distributed 50% based on the mode of registration submission, either in-person or online.

Each person may enroll in a maximum of four workshops by order of preference, provided they are compatible in schedules and do not repeat themes, so that once the list of applications for each specialty with their first choice is exhausted, those with their second choice will begin to be assigned, and so forth.

In case there are vacant spots, they have clarified that new registrations can be made on September 30 and October 1. If all spots are filled, a waiting list will be established. Registrations for the workshops can be submitted online on the Más Cerca website or in person.

The previous course, which ended last June, filled all the spots with a total of 1,872 participants, with a maximum of up to four workshops. Although these workshops are open to all adults, 82% of those who participated in the last edition were over 55 years old.