Back to school is just around the corner. This is the beginning of a stressful phase for many parents and children. Financial anxiety, exacerbated by inflation, affecting all families but especially the most vulnerable.
I am preparing for the first time to comply with this mandatory passage for all parents of school-age children. My oldest starts kindergarten, which means that she has to come to school with a school bag full of felt-tip pens, pencils, glue sticks and all kinds of notebooks. I promised him that soon we would go shopping together, an experience I wish him happily and unforgettable to enter the adult world.
And that’s when it hit me. How many parents will avoid these discussions with their children for lack of resources? How many parents scan lists to find out what to recycle from earlier years or older kids? How many children won’t experience the excitement of back to school that I want my daughter to experience? The answer is simple: too many.
I spoke to Audrey Renaud, the executive director of the organization Regroupement Partage, about this this week, who told me that this year, in particular because of inflation, they would not be able to help 2,000 children. I thought the number was huge, what I learned was much worse.
The organization that created the Opération Sac à Dos cannot meet the demand; there are more than 2000 children in Quebec who do not have the right to a decent school bag. I repeat: IN QUEBEC!
Elementary and secondary school children who come to school in September with plastic bags as backpacks, which are available here, at home.
Kids barely eating a meal or two a day without snacking is more common here in Quebec than you might think.
How does it feel at the end of the day, waking up hungry one morning, having to grab a garbage bag to put last year’s pencils in, and clothes that are too small, too cold, and too worn out? There is a generation of children who despise school and what it represents in terms of stress and anxiety. This is a generation of kids who are more likely to drop out. And that is the failure of all of us.
You can still make a difference: help all children get off to a good start at school by taking part in the Opération Sac à Dos organized by the Regroupement Partage organization.
