For some years now, the economic crisis makes the vulnerability of many families and especially children more evident. Many children have no chance of eating properly at home and for them the dining rooms in the schools are a salvation (provided they get scholarships to be able to eat, which is getting harder and harder ...).
Therefore, when summer comes and schools close to these children, the only acceptable meals per day disappear. In order to avoid it, many schools will open during the holidays: school canteens in summer are a sad reality and I think it is necessary.
Some schools in different locations (each Autonomous Community raises it in a different way) organize activities in the months of July and August to which children at risk can go, where they not only eat but also play and educational activities that also take place They are beneficial for the little ones.
Often, between games and activities there is not only one meal, but also breakfast or snack is introduced or they can even be provided with a "picnic" for dinner. In this way it's not just an "urgent dining room" in which children could be stigmatized, but these little ones who have a problematic economic situation at home live the closest thing to a vacation, the only ones they will have.
In some regions, the opening of social canteens in the summer is included in the Plan to Fight against Child Poverty (it is a topic carried out by the Social Services, the Social Welfare and Family departments ...) and we have recently learned that Government will distribute at the beginning of July 17 million euros among all the autonomous communities to take urgent measures against child poverty.
A fund for the financing of projects that guarantee the feeding and the sustenance of minors whose families are in situation of vulnerability, like the social canteens. Hopefully those resources are very well used, because they really are needed, and this without considering that they are the solution to the problems, obviously.
However, many Communities are considering not opening these dining rooms in summer (or left in the hands of the "good intention" of the different social groups or municipalities, using their own resources) and this despite the defender of the people have pointed out the importance of these dining rooms to avoid the malnutrition problems of many children.
For now, only Andalusia, Aragon and the Canary Islands follow the proposal to open the dining rooms in summer and if the rest does not, what will they allocate those resources they receive from the central government? Again, hopefully they are very well used to alleviate child poverty and the risk of exclusion that is not thousands of kilometers away, we have them around the corner.
