Tunisian students face challenging summer break amid resource scarcity

As suffocating heat is forecast, Tunisia's 2,325,443 students and pupils are preparing for a three-month summer break. Their vacation plans will largely depend on their families' social standing and financial resources.

Some families can afford to send their children to the coast or to homes with swimming pools, while others face significant hurdles for any travel outside their towns. For these families, train or bus journeys, or individual or collective taxis, represent an adventure that strains their budgets. These trips, undertaken with varying frequency, will require careful management of family savings.

Then there are those who are entirely destitute, forgotten and resigned to spending their time in solitude on the streets. Three months without any meaningful occupation can be a harsh reality. The temptation to engage in petty crime, like slashing tires on parked cars, or to sell flowers or tissues for a meager income, might arise, but such 'business' is not always profitable.

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We will see about the youth center and the swimming pool. For the pool, you have to pay money, which you have to get from your parents or siblings. And you can't do it every day.

Seeking work at markets selling produce, like tomatoes and potatoes, could be an option, but it carries the risk of encountering surveillance patrols. Alternatively, joining one of the spontaneously formed neighborhood football teams offers a chance for engagement, though finding a spot can be competitive.

"We will see about the youth center and the swimming pool," one young person noted. "For the pool, you have to pay money, which you have to get from your parents or siblings. And you can't do it every day." Youth centers, like the one in El Menzah 6, are often overcrowded, requiring subscriptions and a struggle to secure a place. "This cultural and sports center is overwhelmed," the report states. "It has become too 'small' for the number of people requesting it." The need to expand such facilities to serve thousands of young people is evident, but even securing a spot two to three times a week is a challenge, leaving long stretches of the three-month vacation unfilled.

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This cultural and sports center is overwhelmed. It has become too 'small' for the number of people requesting it.