Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2013 as an opinion piece on the effects of the economic crisis in Spain, including school meal grants and long-term unemployment; the situation described is that of 2013.
Watch: Educo’s “magic sandwich” campaign video
The charity Educo launched this solidarity campaign asking for help to fund school meal grants, with the aim of protecting children from the impact of the crisis in Spain. The sad reality is that the figures are truly worrying: more and more children, because of their parents’ unemployment and economic hardship, go to school literally without having eaten.
This advert was not the brainchild of a marketing genius. It is based on real events that were reported in El País a few months ago: a teacher noticed that a boy had brought an empty sandwich to school, and the boy told him it was a magic sandwich, filled with whatever he imagined.
There are also various accounts of children rummaging through rubbish bins because, they say, that is what their parents do, while other teachers report children fainting in PE classes from malnutrition, since some go to school without breakfast and probably didn’t have a proper dinner either.
I have always said that the New York Times report that caused such controversy in Spain by showing terribly harsh images of extreme poverty in the country was, in my view, too “soft”, because the situation many families are living through is even worse. Yet that reality, which is nowhere near ending, is being ignored.
“For every NGO that springs up to solve a social problem, there is one leader too many who has not done their job properly.” I once heard someone say this, and they are quite right.
Looking at this chart…
“The long-term unemployed: the main problem in getting out of the current recession” (link, chart)
— J.I. Conde-Ruiz (@conderuiz), September 25, 2013
… we can conclude that more children will end up joining the magic sandwich trend while governments (central and regional) look the other way, since it is probably not their priority.
Open your eyes and look around you.
Many people probably think these are isolated cases, but if we open our eyes and pay attention to the small details, we will see that extreme poverty in our country is more common than it seems.
A few days ago, in a hospital cafeteria, I noticed a father with his son, who was about 13. They had just been to see the mother, who had been admitted as an emergency. The father told his son to order whatever he wanted to eat. The boy asked for a pork loin sandwich and a soft drink. The father, after looking at the money in his wallet, asked for a glass of water. When his son went to the toilet, the man asked the waiter how much the cheapest sandwich was. After hearing the answer, he looked at his wallet again and told the waiter to just charge for his son’s sandwich and drink. In other words, he didn’t have enough money to order a sandwich for himself. When his son came back, he asked his father whether he wasn’t going to eat anything. The father replied that he wasn’t hungry.
I asked the waiter for a pork loin sandwich and a Coca-Cola, and before leaving I told the father that the person I was waiting for wasn’t going to come, that I had already ordered and paid for the sandwich and drink, and that I don’t like throwing food away. So I left it with him.
And honestly, it wasn’t an act of solidarity but of my own selfishness: this man had enough misfortune with his wife in a hospital bed without having to spend the day on an empty stomach as well. If you open your eyes, you will see situations like this very often. Some of them make you want to cry, and at the same time feel ashamed of the state we have reached.
“We have left thousands (or millions) of young people without a future. Let’s not leave children without a childhood.“
Featured image: Tamorlan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
