The camp that changed Matías: "His older brother was using drugs and he was acting like an adult at 10 years old"

Cristina Pinto

"I cried all the time seeing that I couldn't help my son; he had become very aggressive and wanted us to do only... what he said." With a broken voice, Milena recalls the painful reality that was lived in her home just a year ago. Her eldest son, who is now 19 years old, was struggling with substance abuse. And this situation was beginning to rob the childhood of the youngest in the house, Matías. At just ten years old, the younger child reacted to the family drama by assuming a maturity that did not correspond to his age. "He was extremely serious, never laughed, and constantly behaved like an adult," Milena recounts, now happily breathing after the situation was reversed: "My eldest son no longer uses substances and Matías attended a camp that changed his life."

This decisive turn occurred when the summer school of the Association Integration For Life (Inpavi) crossed their paths. "There he was able to forget the problems with his brother and it was a tremendous support; Matías made friends at the camp, they gave us games that helped us all integrate at home and, finally, he became a child again," Milena gratefully says. Right now, this Inpavi camp is making a call to society to combat realities like that of Matías and his family. The crowdfunding campaign 'With your help, they can enjoy great adventures' aims to raise a budget of 10,000 euros by June 30 to fully scholarship ten extremely vulnerable children from Malaga. Donations can be made from one euro through the digital platform 'Mi grano de arena'.

The story of Matías intertwines with that of Jack Esteban, a ten-year-old boy whose mother, Karina, fights daily against the obstacles of precarity. As a single mother living in Malaga, Karina admits that conventional camps are "costly and inaccessible." Karina has just secured a six-month employment contract on a project at the University of Malaga. "Thank God this job came up, but I have to rush to work and juggle everything," the mother shares, who finds in this summer school the only real resource that allows her to keep her job. "Not all families can access the alternatives of paid camps," she details. Jack Esteban, who has been attending Inpavi activities since he was just two years old, always asks his mother to return to this Malaga space.

The experiences of Milena and Karina are not isolated cases, but rather they put a face to a problem affecting thousands of families. According to official data collected in the Report on Child Poverty in Spain prepared by Unicef, one in three minors in our country lives in poverty, which corresponds to 34% of the child and adolescent population. This alarming statistic places Spain as the second country in the European Union with the highest rate of social exclusion among minors.

From academic support to leisure

From Malaga, the funding of these ten scholarships ensures that minors access the camp, "a protected environment that operates from Monday to Friday from eight-thirty in the morning to three-thirty in the afternoon," detail from the association. The program ensures vital nutritional coverage by offering three healthy and balanced meals a day, consisting of breakfast, lunch, and a snack. Children also enjoy workshops on academic reinforcement, music therapy, theatrical expression, dance, storytelling, and digital literacy sessions adapted to new technologies. "And a multidisciplinary team works on the development of emotional intelligence, self-esteem, and mental health of the participants through education in values and active prevention of current destructive behaviors such as cyberbullying, grooming, video game addiction, and harmful use of social networks," specify in Inpavi.

The functioning of the campaign stipulates that for every 250 euros raised, the attendance of a minor for one week is financed, while a contribution of 1,000 euros covers the complete monthly scholarship with all derived costs. With this summer's call, the NGO once again appeals to the solidarity of the people from Malaga to demonstrate that, with collective support, it is possible to restore the right to play and the excitement to the little heroes of the city's most vulnerable families.

• Más temas
• Poverty
• Málaga
• Summer Camps