Marina Segura and Cristina Dumitrescu
Madrid (EFE).- A decade after the Ombudsman’s request to open school canteens in summer for children in vulnerable situations, the reality has worsened and thousands of them still have problems coping with a summer and end of year that do not imply hours of solitude and ensure a daily healthy meal on the table.
The institutional response to the then ombudsman, Soledad Becerril, was disparate and insufficient and has given way to many NGOs covering that deficit with programs like the one launched by Educo ten years ago. Since 2013, it has distributed 59,000 dining room scholarships and provided more than 5 million meals to boys and girls throughout Spain.
Its director of Advocacy and Investigation, Macarena Céspedes, explains to EFE that the situation remains the same and there have even been moments in the last 10 years that “have gone considerably worse.”
During a visit to the center of the Aventura 2000 Association, which receives support from Educo to develop the Beca Comedor Verano program, he recalled that Spain ranks second worst in the European Union in child poverty, which means that around 2.6 million of boys and girls live below the poverty line.
A scenario of vulnerability aggravated by the closure of cabbages
During the school year there are “very few who have access to a canteen scholarship, around 11%, some 800,000 children”, who in summer face a scenario aggravated by the closure of school canteens.
“Summer is coming and they have more than 90 days ahead of them without going to school, with no guarantee of that daily healthy meal, without that space in which they live with other children, in which they play, in which they learn and in which they are protected; many of them will be forced to spend these three months in their neighborhoods without being able to leave their homes, poorly equipped to withstand” the summer heat.
For many families, he continues, summer camps are not an option due to their high price, “therefore the situation of vulnerability increases, one sees the solitude in which many of these boys and girls have to spend their days, their parents do not they have three summer months and they have to work”.
Children who will have “nothing to tell” when they go back to school
A greater public offer is needed for vulnerable children, “it seems that we are talking about nonsense when we say that almost 35% of children cannot go on vacation for at least a week, but it is not. We have all grown up remembering our summers. Many of these boys and girls will not have it and when they go back to school they will have nothing to tell”.
Educo works with social entities to help them launch camps or excursions in which they provide “an educational package where they learn to use new technologies, coexistence issues, emotional education and guarantee that during the camp they have a healthy diet -breakfast, food and on many occasions a snack-, which allows them to be well nourished”.
Spain would have to invest some 1,600 million euros, 0.13% of GDP, to guarantee a dining scholarship for all primary school children (6-12), a “small” cost in public education spending, which “would bring us closer to the European average”, affirms Céspedes.
This summer, Educo works in 15 autonomous communities in collaboration with 67 entities that help some 4,000 children.
Jazmin and Ángel, from Paraguay, are the parents of two children who, thanks to this service, can reconcile their family and work environment, as well as getting their two children to socialize with other children. They arrived in Spain only a year and a half ago and the customs and food are still very different to those of their country.
“It is a trustworthy and safe place, which also helps us a lot in the family economy,” explains Jazmín, whose youngest son goes daily to the Asociación Aventura 2000 and the eldest is 14 years old and is doing the Camino de Santiago with the same entity. .
Aventura 2000, located in a vulnerable context such as the Amposta neighborhood, in the San Blas-Canillejas district, collaborates in the summer with Fundación Educo in dining room scholarships and other activities.
As Macarena Alvear, coordinator of Aventura 2000, explains, her association works all year round with minors in vulnerable situations. “The project is holistic: educational reinforcement, emotions, participation, rights and childhood are worked on and then there is an important block of leisure, we understand that they have the right to vacations, to leave their neighborhood, weekend outings or cultural activities.”
All the work is done in coordination with the educational centers of the neighbourhood, with the families and with the social services.