- Since starting school in 2021, more than 200 minors and young people have passed, and 95% successfully completed the training program
The Government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín Aguirre, has today learned about the project promoted by the Roots Foundation to train children and young people without family protection in Spain, in cooking and room service, Spanish and other basic skills to improve their employability and facilitate their access to the labor market.
After visiting the facilities of the “Conscientious Cooking” School, in which they are formed —provided by the Ovillo restaurant of chef Javier Muñoz-Calero—, he held a meeting with some of the students, who shared their experience, as well as with the technicians of the project.
The government delegate, who has described this project as “a success story” and “an example of how things have to be done”, has been accompanied by the president of the Roots Foundation, Lourdes Reyzabal; the coordinator of the socio-labor insertion program “Kitchen Conscience / Employment Conscience”, María Areces, and the coordinator of the Legal Defense Program, Paloma García De Viedma, to whom he has thanked his work.
In this regard, he has recognized that initiatives such as this and others that come from the social fabric of Madrid are helping to fill the gaps in certain areas of protection presented by the administrations and, with this, they are giving these boys and girls “the opportunity that we all deserve”.
He has also defended the need to “end the targeting” of certain groups of minors, such as those who arrive in Spain unaccompanied, and to work to strengthen the capacities that, from the public, must be offered so that they can have a future.
For her part, Lourdes Reyzábal, has pointed out that “guaranteeing the rights of children by public administrations, recognizing them as children in distress, adequately protecting them and accompanying them in their transition to adult life, is key to prevent the social exclusion to which public policies advocate and the criminalization they suffer”.
“The collaboration with the child protection services in our school and the support of the business sector, is being key to accompany these children on their path to autonomy, guaranteeing their rights,” he added.
About the project
The project of the School is part of the Social and Labor Integration Program “Conscientious Employment”, which since 2010 has achieved more than 800 job opportunities through more than 270 companies throughout Spain, in 12 professional sectors. The program offers full-time indefinite work contracts to young people without training and without previous work experience, being the companies that commit to train them working.
The training of this School, created in 2021, includes practical cooking classes and room service, complemented with Spanish classes and transversal subjects to improve the employability of these young people. At the end, the program provides at least a first job opportunity to those who can access it, in the collaborating companies of the foundation.
Since the beginning of the school, more than 200 minors and young people have been trained and 95% successfully completed. Most have gotten their first job, and the rest haven’t been able to start working because they are still waiting to get their documentation.
It must be taken into account that many of them are migrants who arrived alone in Spain as minors, some of them are in Madrid without the protection of the administrations, and others, after leaving the protection system when they turned 18, were left on the street without the support of those who until then tutored them. To a lesser extent, in this School, there are also Spanish boys and girls tutored by the Administration.
The 54 young people a year who pass through the classrooms receive, thanks to private, public funding and European funds, transportation, a small weekly financial aid and daily food, in addition to the integral support offered by the foundation through other programs.
Fundación Roots is a state-level organization created in 1996 in Madrid. Its objective is to comprehensively help children, young people and families who live in very difficult situations, such as social exclusion or the violation of their rights, to ensure their protection and promote their integration into society.
Link to statements by the government delegate: https://we.tl/t-3nYd3K0WrV8Uf60x