How older Spanish hosts and migrant youth are reshaping what ‘home’ means, one shared kitchen at a time
What does it mean to be seen, not as a threat or a burden, but as a housemate, a helper, even a friend? In “Jóvenes y mayores, bien acompañados”, journalist Agus Morales and photographer Anna Surinyach chronicle the lives behind Spain’s quietly transformative foster care programme for unaccompanied migrant youth. Through three interwoven portraits including Moha from Morocco, Musa from Gambia and Ashi from Punjab, we witness how homes once marked by solitude open up to new rhythms and how teenagers once labeled as menas (a cold, stigmatising Spanish acronym for “unaccompanied foreign minors”) begin to forge lives shaped by affection, autonomy and absurdity in equal measure.
Each story captures a fragile intimacy: Moha plays rap from his phone while Lali stirs her vegetable cream; Joana teaches Musa Catalan with a motherly sternness that both frustrates and grounds him; Ashi, once silent, now jokes over chicken curry with Fernando and Beatriz. These relationships, part temporary arrangement, part chosen family, become a defiant alternative to the dehumanising bureaucracy and racism that so often greet young migrants in Spain.
The article doesn’t shy away from the painful systemic gaps: misidentified legal cases, overcrowded youth centres, age determination tests that override valid passports and the racialised suspicion migrants face on the street, in schools and in state institutions. And yet, the focus always returns to the acts of care that transcend those failures – an offer of tea, a lesson in local idiom, a bed shared in trust.
In each vignette, language becomes both barrier and bridge: Joana pushes Musa to speak Catalan so he might better belong, while Kayla, a young Guinean woman, finds in Spanish the vocabulary to name her queerness and claim her right to live beyond obedience. “The keys,” she says, “are like a trophy, from the place I wanted to leave.” That image of something as mundane as keys becoming a symbol of survival echoes throughout the piece.
Morales’s closing question lingers long after the page ends: why have so many narratives about adolescent migrants been told through the lens of hate? This article insists on a different lens: one of companionship. And it’s all the more powerful because it doesn’t romanticise. Co-habitation is messy. Affection doesn’t erase trauma but in the gap between not being wanted by the state and being wanted by someone, somewhere, lies the possibility of a different future.
Original article (“Jóvenes y mayores, bien acompañados”) by Agus Morales, with photography by Anna Surinyach, first published in Spanish on 29 May 2025.
It’s available here.
Revista 5W is a Spanish-language magazine known for its in-depth, narrative journalism and slow-reporting ethos. Founded by a group of journalists and photojournalists in Barcelona, 5W prioritizes global stories told with depth, empathy and visual power. The “5W” refers to the foundational elements of journalism – who, what, when, where, why – signalling their commitment to thorough, human-centred storytelling beyond breaking news cycles.
Summary by ZN
Sophia Smith Galer is an Anglo-Italian journalist, author and content creator based in London. Credited for pioneering TikTok journalism in the UK, Sophia was a reporter at the BBC and VICE News before going independent, creating content for a community of nearly 900k followers. She has won the British Journalism Award for Innovation of the Year, a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and in 2022 was named by British Vogue as one of the 25 most influential women in the UK. She now works between new and traditional media and this year won the Georgina Henry award for Sophiana, her scriptwriting tool that combines AI with her knowledge base to help journalists make viral videos and combat disinformation. Sophia is a contributing editor at Translator magazine and her next book, How To Kill A Language, will be published next year in the UK and US, charting the global phenomenon of linguicide. She speaks (or, as she prefers to put it, “is endlessly learning”) Spanish, Arabic and Italian.
