School scheme shows social impact of Spain's economic crisis The late morning sun is burning bright, the beaches that line the coast around Málaga are only a short bus ride away. But when Maribel Galacho opens the gate of the Colegio Severo Ochoa, the junior school she heads in the southern Spanish city, the principal finds dozens of pupils waiting. The students from the impoverished district that abuts the school have made the daily trip in the Summer break for a simple reason: to get a decent meal. After they kiss their mothers goodbye, the students head straight down to the school canteen for a late breakfast of chocolate milk, fruit and sandwiches stuffed with spicy chorizo sausage. For most, says Ms Galacho, it will be the first food they have eaten all day. "We have pupils who don't have their basic needs covered, even things like clothing and hygiene," says Ms Galacho. Her school is part of programme launched by the government of Andalucia this year to combat the rising social hardship caused by Spain's prolonged economic crisis. It allows children from poor families to spend July and August back at school, where they are entertained with games and special projects. More importantly, they receive breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack, a balanced diet that includes fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and fish and that is often hard to come by in their homes. Even in an age of abundant food supplies and discount supermarkets, food has become a worry for Spain's poorest. Over the past year, says Ms Galacho, she and her colleagues noticed that a growing number of students were falling asleep in class, apparently from fatigue and lack of a proper diet. "They arrive in the morning, and by mid-morning they fall asleep," she says. They just don't have the energy to follow the school programme. The Colegio Severo Ochoa is one of 12 state schools in Malaga that have stayed open over the summer. Across Andalucia, some 11,000 children have taken part in the programme. Regional governments in Extremadura and the Canary Islands have offered similar but smaller-scale schemes. While the economic news in Spain has been brightening in recent months, few believe there will be a speedy turnround for the country's poorest and their children. The unemployment outlook also remains bleak with 6m out of 47m people out of work. We have to get the food that first the [economic] situation. We have enough to eat but it is often difficult to get to the end of the month. Tamara, mother of three ccording to recent data from Unicef, the UN child welfare organisation, child poverty in Spain has been sharply on the rise since the start of the crisis more than five years ago. The UN body found that almost one in five Spanish children live below the poverty line, one of the worst performers among the 29 advanced countries included in the ranking - and below other crisis-ridden southern European states such as Italy, Portugal and Greece. Due to the crisis, families with real economic problems often have problems to supply their children with proper food, to buy fish and meat and vegetables. Families are cutting spending on everything, including on food," says Marta Arias, a director at Unicef in Spain. She cites a recent poll according to which 40 per cent of Spaniards say they are changing their eating habits as a result of the economic crisis. Her assessment is confirmed by some of the mothers who have sent their children to the summer school in Malaga.