Summer and a lump in the throat

Today I read an article that began by saying: “It already smells like summer and the happiest day of the year is approaching”, they called it something like “Yellow Day”. The article explained that, according to psychology experts, June 20 marks the beginning of a season in which people's quality of life increases.

It is true that summer, in addition to a more than deserved break for the little ones and not so little ones, brings with it a lot of activities for all families: terrace moments, lots of beach with our sons and daughters and fun afternoons, as well as many nights of leisure. And who doesn't enjoy that?

So far, so good. All good if we think that we all enjoy in the same way and that we all have access to the same spaces. If we put ourselves in the place of the neurodivergent families of Lanzarote, those of us who have a family member with any type of diversity, summer goes from being “the happiest time of the year” to being the “feared dates”, because the youngest and not so young, will be two months without school and therefore, multiple unknowns and uncertainties begin to open up related to basic things, but the main one is always “where will my daughter go while I work”.

Many of us have already started since early May with a sweep through all the municipalities of the island, looking not only for options that adapt economically to our possibilities; since therapies do not rest and we have to continue facing this expense, but also that there is a safe and prepared space for our sons and daughters, as there is for any other. We do not want summer camps where a few days after the start we are invited to leave because they cannot be responsible for the resources they need, which happens I dare say in a high percentage of private options.

Does anyone worry, or what is not the same, take care of the odyssey that neurodivergent communities will go through to find inclusive camps?

In relation to this, we could open the melon of how inclusive those spaces are. And it is that, in addition to leaving our sons and daughters in safe places to be able to reconcile without having to give up our jobs, we want that safe place for them to be inclusive, not adapted, points. The difference is that an inclusive place is one where they have therapists specialized in diversity (or at least trained) and where activities are carried out that all children can participate in. A difference that marks, and quite a lot, the experience of children and their families.

As I said, many families have already started knocking on doors, anticipating the predicament that summer poses for us. We want work-life balance to be a reality for our families. In the day to day we already find many cases where it is still a pending issue because the necessary resources are not allocated. We want to reconcile and we want to do it because it is a right. We are not the ones who should give up our jobs to take care of the absolute oblivion in which they have us for two months.

We demand that there be a guarantee of public service and that when neurodivergent families are mentioned in the summer, we do not get a knot in our throats that is difficult to undo.

Saula Rodríguez, President of the SentirTEA Association, founded to defend the rights of autistic people in Lanzarote.