Inés, an 11-year-old girl, was expelled from the English camp in Aldeadurero (Salamanca) last weekend for suffering a maturity delay. "She called me the same Friday night that she arrived to tell me the name of her monitor, the names of her roommates, who even had a TV in the room …", José, her father, explained in an interview with the. The next day, Inés's parents were told that the mothers of the two roommates had complainedbecause they didn't want their daughters to share a room with someone with "special needs". They excused themselves by saying that their daughters were going to an integration school and that "all year they lived with disabled children and, when summer came, they wanted to enjoy the camp without being with these children of the characteristics of Inés."
According to Inés's parents, the girl has been going to camps for three years and had never had any problems. This time, they have chosen this specific camp so that Inés could reinforce her English. Those in charge of the camp explained that Inés had strange behaviors and added that she would not be able to follow the English classes because, according to them, she did not reach a certain level . It should be noted that the parents asked that the rest of the girls not be told about Inés's delay because they feared they might label her. However, the monitor told her roommates.
“ You have no problem. The only thing is that it takes a few seconds to understand and it is difficult if they speak too fast. But she acts like one more, ”Carolina Gómez, Inés's mother, highlighted in an interview with the newspaper El País. “On Monday I enrolled her and I already gave them a background. They told me that everything was phenomenal, that it was going to integrate perfectly; that I was in the 7 to 12 year old range, that at those ages they don't have much English and that it was all with games and activities, then there was no problem, "added Inés's mother.
They proposed two options to the parents: that Ines could sleep alone with a monitor or that they go for her. They refused the first option and in the end Ines was taken out of the camp. They assure that they are going to report the facts for an alleged crime of discrimination. As they have commented to the media, Inés is very affected, since she does not understand why she had to "leave the camp."
