The "Christmas School 2020" program, developed by the Youth Council in collaboration with the Collective for Social Promotion "El Candil", is a resource whose objective is to offer families an alternative to reconcile work and family life in holiday periods, in this case in the Christmas holidays. This edition has been developed during the non-school holiday period, beginning on December 23 and ending on January 8, in which around 70 children between 3 and 12 years old have benefited from this free resource, which has had a great success of acceptance and participation given the social situation due to the pandemic. This activity has been carried out in the municipal spaces provided by the Totana City Council: the “José Munuera y Abadía” Reading Center, the San Francisco neighborhood Social Center and the Alta Era Social Center; Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m.
to 3 p.m.
and from 4 p.m.
to 6 p.m. Within this schedule, the participants have developed various activities, such as crafts and creative expression workshops, sports activities and healthy leisure, educational games and school review so that children can continue to advance in their learning, offering a structured and quality alternative to leisure and free time of minors during the holiday period. In addition, complementary activities were also offered every afternoon for those participating families who needed it.
Thus, among these activities there have been organized a Christmas cinema forum, a badge workshop, accompaniment to the delivery of the letter to the Three Wise Men or a Christmas craft workshop, among others. Among the activities in which the little ones have enjoyed the most this year, the cooking workshop stood out, where the children could enjoy a Christmas cooking workshop, decorating Christmas cookies for breakfast and taking home, with the collaboration of "La Despensa de Tani ".
Another activity that was also very popular was the celebration of New Year's Eve on December 31 in the morning, where the participants drank their own 12 grapes to the rhythm of the "balloon-chimes" and music. Due to the special situation in which we find ourselves, the groups of children have been very small and without contact between them, in order to guarantee the safety of all participants, all the hygiene and safety measures have been taken as a reference.
to COVID-19 proposed by Health, Education and the risk prevention company contracted for this purpose, creating a specific protocol adapted to the activity, which we are sure has contributed to the development successfully, without any impact on the entire period. The families participating this year have valued this conciliation resource very positively, which, being free, becomes an important measure of support for families, having covered up to a range of 9 hours a day for parents' working days. In addition, the evaluations of the human team of professionals who have participated in this edition and the activities carried out with the minors have been highlighted by parents, who have seen how their children enjoyed their vacation time, as well as the trainers and the Support staff watched over their safety and well-being. The Christmas School 2020 has been a Project financed by the European Social Fund 2014/2020 and the Ministry of Women, Equality, LGTBI, Families and Social Policy of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia.
