The emergency for children continues a year after the DANA storm

On October 29, 2024, Inma was at home with her 11-year-old son when a neighbor knocked on the door and told them, "Go upstairs, water's coming." Within seconds, their garage began to flood. The water eventually reached over a meter high, halfway up the first-floor staircase. "The boy kept leaning over the stairs and saying, 'Mom, it's on the second step; Mom, it's on the third; Mom, it's on the fourth.'" They lost their car, their computer, their refrigerator, their clothes… This is Inma's story, but this story—or worse—could be told by hundreds of thousands of people affected by the storm that day, which claimed 229 lives in dozens of Valencian municipalities. "I didn't leave my front door until the sixth day. I didn't want to see certain things, so my mind wouldn't hold onto them," recalls this mother who lives in l'Horta Sud, in the epicenter of the tragedy.

Safe spaces and support for children

Following the storm that struck Valencia in October 2024, many children were left in a highly vulnerable situation. The "la Caixa" Foundation, through its CaixaProinfancia program, has collaborated in addressing their emotional, material, and educational needs and continues to support them twelve months later.

The first step was creating safe spaces, explains Rodrigo Hernández, director of Save the Children in the Valencian Community, one of the organizations collaborating with the CaixaProinfancia program and coordinating the disaster response. "When schools were closed or unavailable, when the streets were unsafe due to lack of lighting and mud everywhere… it was essential to guarantee children a safe space where they could be protected, where we could monitor their well-being and address their problems, and where families could go knowing their children were safe."

Later, these spaces moved to schools as they were able to reopen, and there the organizations continued to support the children to ensure their well-being. At the same time, the program provided families with assistance to cover basic needs. With this aid, they tried to "ensure they had the bare minimum in terms of food, a mattress, blankets, and that they could pay their electricity or rent for the month they had lost their job or were unable to work," Hernández explains.

Reconstruction and sustained support

A year ago, the "la Caixa" Foundation launched an extraordinary aid plan, endowed with more than 5 million euros, to support those affected by the DANA storm. The organization acted in two phases, emergency and recovery, with the aim of addressing the most urgent needs and then providing long-term support to families. The plan was structured around four main lines of action: emergency response, social inclusion, health, and child welfare.

"An emergency doesn't end when the streets are clean," explains the head of Save the Children. He maintains that the organizations continue working "so that the families impacted by the DANA storm can return, at the very least, to where they were before."