Ayman, 21 years old, left Morocco at 16, entered a juvenile center in Ceuta and upon reaching the age of majority continued his migratory route to Barcelona. He says that he slept outdoors for about six months with other kids in the same situation until, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, in the spring of 2021, he accessed the Llar d'Oportunitats, a service promoted by Barcelona City Council to shelter vulnerable homeless youth. The project goes beyond offering them training and helping them process documentation, it also focuses on emotional support and integration into the community, highlights its director, Marta Raso.
“It is the only resource of its kind that works in Spain, it was born with the Covid emergency and has been consolidated. We are artisans of the intervention and we take an x-ray of each person, we develop an individual action plan with the participation of a multidisciplinary team, in which there are integrators and social workers, psychiatrists... There is no limit to the length of stay in the center.” , highlights Marta Raso.
The Llar d'Oportunitats took over the extraordinary equipment that was launched in Montgat, in April 2020, during the pandemic, considering that it was necessary to maintain a center for young homeless migrants, between 18 and 23 years of age. . Now the Barcelona Llar d'Oportunitats has 40 places and there is a waiting list of seven. It is the professionals of the SDI, the Detection and Intervention Service with children, adolescents and young people who have migrated alone, who select, together with the Superacció entity, the people who enter this particular home.
Ayman went from subsisting on the street to accessing the Llar about three years ago, which since it opened in the Guinardó neighborhood has welcomed a total of 87 boys. “On the street I slept with other classmates, there were those who sniffed glue, others took pills, I smoked joint... I gave it up and now I take a course as a kitchen assistant, in the summer I work and dedicate my free time to sports, I go to the I go to the gym, I swim...,” he says. “They are young people with many difficulties, some with mental health problems, with addictions, who require greater attention. When you invest in this group, when you support them, you have a return,” says Sonia Fuertes, commissioner of Social Action of Barcelona, who notes the decrease in the age of homeless people.
Along with Ayman, Suleiman Nageer, 20, also offers his testimony. “I left Morocco at the age of 14 and was in a juvenile center in Ceuta until I was 16. They sent me to another one in Asturias, at 18 I left, came to Barcelona and stayed on the street for about twelve months. Then I met a social educator from SDI and I have been here since the summer of 2022,” he details. Suleiman is immersed in a Superacció course “in which his social and emotional skills are also worked on,” explains the founder of this entity, Zouhair Zammouri. “Many of the difficulties we have with these kids is what they do with their free time, this is the cornerstone of the entire process, not just their training,” adds Zammouri. That is why a relevant link in the chain towards insertion is to foster their relationship with neighborhood entities. "Every Friday - he highlights - we do workshops with the neighbors, they give them Catalan classes, we promote meetings with the elderly and with the civic center and on weekends we can use the sports court of a high school in the area."
