“We will do one thing: the first day, you go to class and you ask what is the book that you are going to use the most. This is the one we will buy, and as we work we will buy the rest. Now we can not do more, we are adrift. I’m sorry, darling”. This is a conversation between a mother and a daughter in the bosom of a family crossed by all poverty, which cannot afford to buy the necessary school supplies for the back to school for their children.
the mother is called Carmen Sifuentes. The daughter, Brendi Becerra. On Wednesday, the adolescent begins the second course of middle grade of administrative management. She is aware that she will not do it like the rest of her classmates: she lacks all the material. Like this one, there are hundreds of families in trouble for back to school. And more with inflation. “They tell us that schooling is free but it’s a lie. They ask me for more than 300 euros for my two children,” he says. loli stopDesperate single mom.
The Becerra Sifuentes family lives in a flat of L’Hospitalet de Llobregatfinanced with the support of Caritas. The parents, Carmen and José Luis, pay 230 euros each month. “More we cannot assume”, they explain. He works in construction without a contract. She, caring for the elderly a few hours a week. Hopefully they raise about 600 euros a month to support their three daughters: Brendi18, briannaof 6, and Amber, of 4. The little ones have started 1st grade of primary and Infant-4. The desperate parents have not been able to buy any material from them. “In summer the works close and there is no work,” he says. This August they have survived with about 100 euros that the mother has obtained working in homes. It is less than what they ask for the books of her eldest daughter. “Let’s hope it gets better and they call my husband these weeks,” she confides.
“I am in misery”
This family is in a particularly vulnerable situation: they emigrated from Peru in 2019 and do not have permits to reside or work legally in Spain. His employers owe him more than 600 euros and he had an accident at work but could not get rid of the sick leave. “Since I don’t have a contract… they do what they want with us,” the father resigns. But it is not a situation exclusive to migrants. loli stopneighbor of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, is in the same predicament. She is a single mother of three children who are 14, 15 and 16 years old. “Every September I drag this problem, but this year … it’s impossible, I’m in misery,” she exclaims.
The school offers her to use reused textbooks for her three children. However, you must pay a minimal fee. “They ask me 140 euros for each one,” she laments. The sum exceeds 400 euros, which is what she earns every month cleaning homes and stairs. “I can’t pay itwhat I end up doing is that I have to go talk to the directorask him to help me and then I pay what I can, but I still owe money from last year“, she explains. “Fortunately, the Red Cross gives me school supplies and they help me,” insists the woman, who participates in many of the entity’s programs, including psychological support.
Stop eating to pay bills
But the purchase of school supplies is just one of the many bills that make the most impoverished families tremble. “As prices have risen, I only like once a day. The rest I’m throwing coffee with milk, “recognizes Parada. With luck, her children have right to dining room scholarship during the year that assures them a proper meal a day at the institute. A luck, to have scholarships for the dining room, which the Peruvian family managed to process in April. “We are hoping that they can give it to us this year too,” continues her mother, who thanks to donations from her school was able to buy gifts for the Kings of her daughters last Christmas. Remembering it, she bursts into tears.
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Another of the bills that they see as impossible to assume is that of housing. Parada is occupying a flat with her three children, of whom they want to evict her soon. Social services have installed a water meter, but the electricity company has not done the same. The minors live with their mother with the electricity punctured. The Sifuentes – Becerra family is lucky to have the support of Caritas, although in recent years they have been living in an abandoned industrial warehouse in Sant Joan Despí, and in a rented room in Ripollet. “The five of us slept on a mattress,” says the mother.
It hurts Carmen and Loli that their children come to school limping, in different conditions from the rest of the students. Either they will be able to do the outings to which the whole class will go, unless the school or social entities finance it. “You’re ashamed to have to ask, but for your children you do anything, even if I’m left with nothing,” insists the father, José Luis Becerra. “The worst thing is that education is the door my children have so they don’t end up like me… and seeing these differences right away… it kills me“, regrets Parada for his part.