Organiser: Barcelona Children’s Hospital Foundation.
Collaborating organisation: Ramon Molinas Foundation.
Dates of implementation: 14/09/2015 – 21/06/2016.
Child nutrition support programme, a scheme to combat malnutrition in Catalan children
The Ramon Molinas Foundation is collaborating with the Barcelona Children’s Hospital Foundation with the objective of improving child nutrition in Catalonia. The programme is aimed at children from low income families who do not receive one of the school meal subsidies provided by the public authorities. The scheme guarantees them at least one meal per day.
The Ramon Molinas Foundation provides a total of ten yearly school meal grants to pupils from the ten centres of children’s nursery and primary education and obligatory secondary education which the Vicenciana School Foundation runs in Catalonia. These grants are in addition to the other ten offered by the Barcelona Children’s Hospital Foundation. The head teachers of the respective centres are responsible for suggesting grant recipients through the evaluation of their pupils’ socio-economic statuses. Once the children in need are detected, the head teacher of the school presents the cases to the Barcelona Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Ramon Molinas Foundation. The two organisations, prioritising those in most urgent need, evaluate the provision of support and make the time to monitor improvements in the child as well as to what extent they are benefitting from the scheme.
Only 25% of under 16s under the poverty line have access to school meal grants
According to sources at the Department of Social Welfare and Family, 69,000 children and young people in Catalonia benefited from school meal grants awarded by the public authorities during the school year 2014-2015. Of these, a total of 11,000 minors benefited from a complete school meal grant. Yet despite the 42.8 million euros allocated to the scheme and that the number of children helped has approximately doubled since the school year 2013-2014 when 6,648 complete grants were awarded, the coverage still is not sufficient.
The Federation of the Pupils of Catalonia Parents Association (FaPaC), based on a report on child malnutrition by a Catalan Ombudsman published in 2013, warned that “only 25% of under 16s under the poverty line have access to school meal grants provided by the Catalan Government Department of Education”. Given these circumstances, the Catalan Ombudsman and Unicef both agree in their warning that school meal grants are “very necessary” and that “they are palliative measures against severe poverty”.
The Barcelona Children’s Hospital Foundation, a pioneering centre in care, education and paediatric research
The idea of the Barcelona Children’s Hospital Foundation was created in the year 1886 when Doctor Francisco Vidal Solares and Sister Mercedes Viza founded a dispensary in Barcelona. Four years later, thanks to the efforts of the Company of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul to guarantee the wellbeing of patients and those in need, the Poor Children’s Hospital of Barcelona was inaugurated. In 1980 the hospital became a non-profit foundation with the aim of providing, and educating in, medical and preventative child care.
Currently, with around 200 professionals making up the workforce, the Barcelona Children’s Hospital Foundation is a pioneering centre in Spain specialising in care, education and research in the field of paediatrics. The services it provides boasts all medical specialities and includes outpatient, surgical and emergency services 24 hours a day for patients between 0 and 18 years old. In addition, it has one of the best services in orthodontics and dentistry in Europe and its professionals are trained to care for children with any disability, disorder or pathology.
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