Luis looks older than he is. His haircut and the way he dresses reflect his recent 17 years, but unlike most young people in our country, he emancipated himself very early. From Monday to Friday, he lives in Jerez de la Frontera, in the public school residence “Rancho Colores”, belonging to the Department of Educational Development, since last year his family, according to him, his educational center, and the mediation of La Femme. The Association of Santiago El Mayor de Utrera will send him there to continue his studies, which he will soon resume with the opening of the new course.
The most direct environment was not the most favorable for his concentration, confesses to SevillaelDiario.es this educated and reserved young man, who is very clear: “I want to focus on my studies and get the most out of them.” If Mahmoud, one of the protagonists of our “People of 10”, wrote in the book “Leaving to tell, an African clandestine on the way to Europe” to teach his compatriots that the European dream is more difficult than they think, Luis One day he will be able to say that he had to leave to train and continue laying the foundations for his future.
Luis’ family lives in Utrera, one of the ten cities with the lowest average income per taxpayer in Spain, according to the latest report by the Foundation for Applied Economic Studies (Fedea). The Santiago Women’s Association has its headquarters in the modest neighborhood of El Tinte. Inmaculada Aguilar, who has been working with Luis and his family for several years, explains that there are cases in which the minor must break with his closest context to advance academically. And Luis, who comes from an unstructured family where roles are perpetuated but who has distinguished himself by his good school work, needed this change to reverse the trend of poverty that, like wealth, is also inherited. His mother accuses him of her absence, it is obvious, but he knows that his departure now will help him in the years to come, where education and training will be the best basis.
Luis seems focused on his studies, as he has stated. None other than the famous Andalusian Institute of Astrophysics in sight. Intelligent and responsible, Luis tells how the step he took, from which he got up every day at 6:20 a.m. to take a bus and go to school, went: “Here in Utrera, I couldn’t sleep well. I had a lot of headaches and I wanted to be able to concentrate on my studies in peace. In Jerez, I adapted very quickly,” he sums up from the association’s headquarters, once he had successfully completed the course.
“It was very good for him to be away”
“Inma, I received two papers regarding the scholarship,” says his mother, Encarni, who says she is “the one in charge” even though she leaves almost everything in the hands of Inmaculada and the people who considered him. Luis He needed a change in his life even if he had not asked for it. Luis knows how to be and it is not something to ask for, they both say, and now he focuses on his studies in a more favorable environment. In their city there is a baccalaureate and from the residential center itself they were surprised by the transfer of young Luis at the beginning of a course that is currently ending.
Luis’ mother says that Inmaculada is “his second tutor”, in addition to the one he has at the Jerez educational center. “They gave me this option and he is happy”, he comments, thanking the association for its work to offer this “brilliant young man” a more facilitating environment. The adjective comes from Inmaculada and not from his mother, who knows her son’s potential and knows the timely help of the association so that Luis can finish his studies, in which he is progressing with very good grades, without falling below 8 in the last assessment.
Finishing the first year of the Baccalaureate, Luis is “an exceptional case”, especially because in Utrera you can do secondary studies. There are other places where families are “forced” to send students to this type of center because there is no place to continue their academic training. “It was very good for him to be absent”, insists his “second tutor”, who says that the young man needed a boost and “accompaniment” to continue studies that would open the door and his mind and improve his expectations for the future. “He is the smartest. “He will get me out of my misery”, summarizes his mother, who has another son aged 27.
Her modest aspirations do not stop in the classroom. Drama and mathematics competitions are also among her “extracurricular activities” with her 60 classmates, most of them from Cadiz, and the help of the residential center monitors, who first ensure the continuity of this support while advancing the shared accommodation experience and have the opportunity to play table football, table tennis or go to the gym. The Inma also emphasizes the importance of maintaining “healthy leisure activities” that complement academic challenges.
Group therapy workshops
In this “ranch of colors” he lives from Monday to Thursday before returning every Friday to his hometown, where of course he continues to maintain friendships so important at this crucial moment. “It stands out too much,” says Encarni, like any other mother of a boy of that age. Luis can’t help but smile shyly, like any other young man of that age, when his mother alludes to the fact that “a girlfriend or something like that” could encourage him to frequent the streets more here and there.
Neither leisure nor friendships seem to distract him much anymore, judging by his average grade. Inmaculada is pleased to have obtained, at the same time, the 6000 scholarship from the Council and the general scholarship from the Ministry of Education, intended for young people who have continued their studies in non-compulsory secondary education. This little brother, who woke up early every Monday of the school year to take the Utrera-Jerez de la Frontera train, continues to receive therapeutic attention every Friday, when he returns home, to be helped with his emotions. Raquel, the association’s psychologist, has taken care of him, who offers you the “tools” so that you can manage the changes, frequent in young people his age but which multiply in Luis’ case.
The CaixaProinfancia program has accompanied him throughout the process in recent years in educational reinforcement services, leisure and free time and in psychotherapeutic care, both for him and for his mother in group therapy workshops, explains Inmaculada Aguilar. This year, he has had the support of the psychologist to be able to perform and maintain the academic and psychosocial level. In addition to the services that the program itself has, the figure of the family representative and the social worker is essential to carry out the work plan with the family and “see the resources they need and those they do not need”. “We have to fight for this”, says Inmaculada, aware of “the importance of education to break the spiral of poverty”.
