The "la Caixa" Foundation has allocated 2.6 million euros to a total of 99 projects for the fight against child poverty and social exclusion, which together will benefit more than 20,500 people throughout Spain, with 540 professionals and 3,162 volunteers involved.
The 'Fight against child poverty and social exclusion' call, the second one resolved in the 2021 Aid Programme for Social Initiatives Projects, aims to help break the cycle of child poverty and promote projects that facilitate the integral development and social inclusion process of people in vulnerable situations, strengthening their capacities and favouring equal opportunities.
In this sense, projects have been chosen mainly focused on formal and non-formal socio-educational support actions and personal and family skills (42.4% of the total number of selected initiatives); as well as psychological, emotional and personal empowerment care and basic social care (31.3% of the projects).
The criteria for the evaluation and selection of projects revolved around the capacity of the entity, viability and planning of the project, as well as the alignment of the project, its objectives and actions with the priority lines of the call for proposals and the expected impact on the target population.
The aim of this area, within which a total of 51 projects have been selected, is to promote initiatives that contribute to breaking the cycle of poverty, empowering children and adolescents; strengthening the family as the axis of socio-educational action; and emphasising, on this occasion, the problems derived from the unprecedented economic and social crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The priority lines of action of the chosen initiatives have been basic social care (access to goods and services such as food, hygiene or canteen grants); formal socio-educational support actions (school reinforcement, family accompaniment, positive parenting, etc.); non-formal socio-educational support actions (leisure and free time or projects for transition to adult life); and psychotherapeutic and emotional care.
Within this area, there are 48 projects whose aim is to facilitate the integral development and social inclusion processes of people in a situation of vulnerability, strengthening their capacities and favouring equal opportunities.
In 2021, special attention has also been paid to the current crisis situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to an increase in social inequalities, with a greater impact on the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people, although it has also spread to more sectors of the population.
Thus, the priority lines have revolved around basic social care (access to basic goods and services); psychosocial care and personal empowerment from an inclusive perspective in the family and community sphere, focusing on actions that favour the reduction of the feminisation of poverty; accompanying the homeless in their process of starting the process of social inclusion; and protection against situations of gender violence or the start/increase of addictive behaviours.