The big challenge of getting on the coach: why is it so hard to get some children to go on summer camp?

Barcelona“We paid for the summer camp and bought everything: the backpack, the sleeping bag, the mosquito repellent; but at the last minute she started crying and didn’t want to go,” explains Somaya about her 8-year-old daughter, Nadjat. It’s not the first time this has happened. Since kindergarten (i5), Nadjat’s school—located in the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona—has organized a one- or two-night summer camp every two years, but Somaya has yet to get her daughter to go. According to the report Wasn't educational leisure a right?d'Alliance 360Participation in leisure activities (such as summer camps or extracurricular activities) varies drastically depending on origin and income: children from newly arrived families participate between 20% and 30% less in organized leisure activities compared to children from native families.

The fear of distance

Nadjat simply says she doesn't want to leave her parents. The family, although they try to encourage her, can't convince her. "When she's at school, she feels like everyone else, she doesn't see any cultural differences, but when it comes to leaving, it's different, even though I encourage her to do everything," Somaya explains. The same thing happened to her eldest son, Mohammed, who only attended sixth grade because his father insisted: "His father told him he had to go because he was old enough and because we had bought all the materials," his mother says. Despite that experience, he has fallen behind again in high school.

"Generally, families are hesitant to go away and sleep elsewhere when it comes to summer camps; they're very apprehensive about leaving home," explains Josep Vilaró, director of the Institut Escola Baldomer Solà in Badalona. For the past seven years, they've implemented a summer camp program for all grade levels; in preschool, they offer "camps at the school" where students spend one night there. At this school, which serves a diverse population and is located in a very low-income area with a high risk of social exclusion, it's difficult for both local students and the children of newly arrived families to take the plunge. According to Vilaró, the fear of losing control of their children or the lack of experience of leaving the neighborhood are widespread feelings. "The fact that the school takes them two hours away or that they sleep away from home for one or two nights is a barrier that's very difficult for us to overcome," he says.

Somaya also faced this barrier of ignorance, especially when her children were younger and she didn't see it as so important or necessary. "When they were little, I was more afraid. At five, I felt they still needed their mother, but now that they're older and know how to defend themselves, I don't mind," she says. "Often it's fear and insecurity, but in other cases, although they don't say it directly, the obstacle comes from a religious or cultural issue," Vilaró explains about her experience.

A luxury during school hours

Beyond the feeling of security, economic reality is the biggest obstacle. According to several studies, it is the main reason for not participating in non-mandatory leisure activities such as summer camps. A three-day stay can cost between 150 and 250 euros, and for a family with a precarious income, this amount can be unaffordable. Given that students of foreign origin are three times more likely to live at risk of poverty, cost becomes the first major impediment. According to the report Education 360: Beyond School Time It highlights that the children who least often attend school trips and camps during school hours are also the ones who do the least extracurricular activities and are therefore doubly excluded.

Maria Truñó, a leading figure in the Education 360 Alliance, warns that the problem is structural: "The area of ​​school summer camps is in a legal limbo; they are not a mandatory (and therefore free) activity, but they take place during school hours. This creates a discretionary situation where the right to leisure is not guaranteed; the administration should be involved." According to experts from the Federation of Movements for Pedagogical Renewal, when a child doesn't go on summer camp, they miss out on approximately 20% of the experience of group cohesion, since three days of shared living are equivalent to an entire term of interaction in the playground.

The stigma of staying on the ground

"These are spaces of immense educational value. Many teachers say they discover exactly what children are like when they see them at summer camp. If they don't go, they're not part of the group from the start; it's a loss of belonging that weakens bonds and creates stigmas," warns Maria Truñó. When Nadjat's classmates go to summer camp, it's not a problem for her: "She's happy because she knows she'll stay home," explains her mother. "They miss out on opening up to the world, getting to know the area, experiencing a different context, interacting with classmates in another setting, and connecting with teachers in a leisure situation where a very special bond is formed," comments Vilaró. Over all these years of experience, the school has observed that, for example, boys are more likely to attend summer camp than girls, and it's more difficult for them to enroll in secondary school than in primary school.

For the Education 360 Alliance, while formal education is guaranteed, non-formal education—such as summer camps—is still often perceived as a "luxury" or a "private matter" for families. Therefore, they demand that it be universal and free to compensate for social inequalities and prevent economic disparities from widening the educational gap between children.

Invisible barriers and intangible obstacles

However, when Somaya speaks with other newly arrived or second-generation families (like her own), she notices a certain reluctance in their community to participate in these types of activities, beyond the economic aspect: "Some families do it because of a lack of money, others are afraid, or the children are confined, or they don't want to participate; they prefer to stay put, even though it affects them, or they have doubts about the food." In the case of the IE Baldomer Solà, they have the "affordable backpacks"This aid, which depends directly on the Generalitat of Catalonia and has European support within the PMOE PROA+ Program, allocates resources to outings, summer camps, and other activities for children in disadvantaged socioeconomic and sociocultural situations. "We receive this aid throughout secondary school and up to the first year of primary school," Vilaró comments, "sometimes they have a say in matters of trust and security."

For Truñó, we are facing a mix of intangible factors: "What we're seeing is that, beyond the financial obstacle, there's a host of other related problems: fear of the unknown, bureaucracy, the digital divide, or the language barrier, which mean that, despite the availability of scholarships, they don't end up participating." In other schools, support for the most vulnerable families comes from the educational communities themselves, the schools, or parent-teacher associations (PTAs), which pay for part or all of the summer camps because they recognize their importance.

A job done with "pick and shovel"

Precisely to support families and explain that the summer camps are "safe" and "necessary" for learning, the Baldomer Solà school employs social workers who do "a lot of hard work," the director explains. "We also have a liaison for the Roma community and we're trying to establish a similar role to bridge the gap with the Pakistani community," he adds. Besides the liaisons and social workers, the tutors and the school administration are essential to this dialogue, holding meetings or making individual calls with families to answer their questions and provide information about room assignments, meals, and so on. This year in Catalonia, there are only 60 educators and 240 social workers (TIS) in schools: just 300 social workers for all of Catalonia. "There should be professionals doing this work, but the tragedy is that we only have one social worker or social worker for every thousand vulnerable students," Truñó points out. Somaya has also found this support; different teachers at the center have spoken with her and Nadjat and resolved their doubts in an attempt to get her to join these activities, although without success.

"Everything done outside of school is seen as secondary, and families receive this message. It's a right recognized in the Statute and the Education Law, but it's not implemented effectively to reduce the disparity between children," Truñó warns. For Josep Vilaró, amidst all this struggle there are also rewards, such as ensuring that Roma children or students with special educational needs, who had never attended summer camps before entering primary school, have now enrolled in secondary school and even repeated a year. "The children come back thrilled; their happy faces are priceless, but every year is a struggle, and we have to work very individually with the families," he explains.

Somaya hopes Nadjat will be encouraged to go next year: "I advise her to go because I want the best for her, I want her to do the things I haven't done," she confesses. For Vilaró, going to summer camp is much more than spending a few days away; it's about enjoying a space that, being less academic, allows for deeper development of the relationships between teachers and students. The difficulty lies in making this understood and providing the resources to make it effective: "In a more unequal society, we must make a greater effort to uphold what's at stake in terms of equity in leisure activities outside of school. Leisure seems to be overshadowed by education, and education overshadowed by the social and educational challenges beyond the school," warns Truñó.