The Comedor Universal por Derecho platform has accused the Community of Madrid of maintaining a school meal grant system that "abandons" thousands of children in vulnerable situations. The organization presented its second report on school meal grants in the region, denouncing that only four out of ten minors in poverty have this aid recognized.
Roberto Borda, spokesperson for the platform, stated that the current aid system "is not capable of caring for children" and emphasized the importance of guaranteeing the right to food and education under equal conditions. "For every ten children in poverty, two are abandoned to their fate because the grant system does not reach them," he stated. "Knowing that in the third richest region in Europe there are children for whom the right to food is not guaranteed fills us with pain," he lamented.
The report attributes the problem's origin to the reform of the grant system implemented by the Community of Madrid in 2023. According to the platform, the region has frozen the budget allocated to grants while the number of applications increases and child poverty grows. Approximately 33 percent of Madrid schoolchildren live in poverty, but school meal aid barely reaches 15 percent of the student body, leaving around 300,000 minors from families with economic difficulties with this need unmet.
One in three schoolchildren lives in poverty and only four out of ten impoverished children have a grant
Borda insisted that school meals are crucial not only for nutrition but also for education and socialization. "Children value playing with their friends in the playground, spaces beyond the classroom… If your stomach is empty, that will always be more complicated," he explained. He added that "it is proven that in centers with universal meal services, academic results improve."
The platform also criticizes the processing of applications for migrant families, pointing out that the administration requires proof of income from previous years, which excludes many minors whose parents did not have residence or work permits at that time. They estimate that at least 21,000 denied applications correspond to migrant families, suggesting a discriminatory bias in the system.
Furthermore, they consider the model "aporophobic," discriminatory towards poor people. Families receiving the Minimum Vital Income obtain barely a 9 percent concession rate, while grants awarded to members of the State Security Forces and Corps have increased by 34 percent. "It cannot be that the most impoverished children are not at the center of this public policy," criticized Roberto.
The Community of Madrid contributes 2.50 euros and families continue to pay another three
The report highlights the invisibility of single-mother families, who do not have a specific category on current forms, despite being one of the groups with the highest poverty rates. Regarding co-payment, most families must continue to pay part of the cost of school meals, with only 2 percent of the aid covering the full amount.
The organization also denounced the increasing complexity and cost of administrative management after the outsourcing of the service, contrasting it with the previous simplicity when processing was done at the schools themselves. The platform's main demand remains the implementation of a universal and free meal service for all students, as the only way to eliminate stigmatization and guarantee real equality in schools.
