Hundreds of families take to the streets in Madrid to demand traffic-free schools: "We want to breathe clean air"

Paula Cid, 41, paints a cardboard tree with the Puerta de Alcalá behind her with her daughter Teresa.

They are on the streets to claim fewer cars and a safer space for children in the school environment.

The five-year-old girl studies at CEIP Rufino Blanco, a school located between two streets that are particularly busy with cars.

“When I walk to school with my daughter, she talks to me and I don't hear anything because of the noise.

The journey becomes unbearable for us, ”says the desperate mother.

Like them, hundreds of families from different schools in Madrid took part this Friday in the school protest against pollution, called by the School Revolt movement.

The protest was concentrated above all next to the Madrid City Council, with the blockade of Calle de Alcalá, between Cibeles and Puerta de Alcalá.

The movement, which was born in Barcelona in December 2020 to demand more pedestrian spaces around schools and less pollution and noise from cars, has become very strong in Madrid.

On the first Friday of each month, the Associations of Families of Students (AFA) and the Associations of Mothers and Fathers of Students (AMPA) from various centers in the city carry out traffic closures at the exit of the schools to demand greater security for their children. sons.

With this Friday's activity, School Revolt has joined the international campaign #StreetsForKids of Cities Clean that this Friday has organized more than 300 demonstrations throughout Europe.

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Raquel Galera, 39, has not missed a single date of the school protest since her daughter Ángel began attending the CEIP Unamuno this year.

"It is impossible to take your son to school," she says.

“The sidewalks are very small and since we have the ghost kitchens, motorcycle traffic has increased.

A horror”.

In 38% of infant and primary schools in Madrid, the annual average of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) exceeds 40 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3), a legal limit established by the European Commission since 2010. nine in the morning, the usual time to enter school, only five schools in the capital are free from being above the legal limit.

Looking for a permanent solution

At four in the afternoon this Friday, hundreds of students from the Ramiro de Maeztu school, in the Chamberí district, occupy Jorge Manrique street, where the main exit for schoolchildren from the center is, which adjoins the institute.

Posters with the slogan "We want to breathe clean air" and "We want space to play" are hung on the walls of the center, which this Friday is participating in the School Revolt and in the international #StreetsForKids movement.

The AMPA parents have organized a big party with sack races, storytelling on the sidewalks and a badminton field in the street.

A group of children participate in a sack race in front of the Ramiro de Maeztu school, in Madrid. Lucie MAILLARD

“I wouldn't know if this type of activity is necessary.

But it's not a problem for my family either, ”says Paco Lucio (47 years old) while he waits at the school door for his three daughters to come out of class.

Every day they come to the center by car.

"Today I had to park two streets down, but it's not too much trouble, it's only once a month."

The AMPA of Ramiro de Maeztu has been working for months on a proposal from the School Council to demand from the City Council the pedestrianization of Jorge Manrique Street during school entrance and exit hours.

"We did a survey among all the parents of the school, and the truth is that the response has been very good," explains a spokeswoman.

This same week Ecologists in Action published the results of a study on contamination in the surroundings of eight Madrid schools close to major entrances to the city and large avenues (the Divino Maestro, next to the A-5; the San Viator school, near Plaza Elíptica; the Nuestra Señora de las Delicias; the Alberto Alcocer, in Canillejas and the Legado Crespo, in the center).

In all schools, NO₂ values ​​four times higher than those recommended by the WHO have been recorded.

Since 2018, the only time that the air quality in Madrid has registered a slight improvement was during the confinement of the pandemic.

However, the pollution worsened again as soon as the cars were back on the road.

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