Iona Napier
AN expat mother has set up a ground-breaking new charity in Andalucia to help troubled teens and younger kids get through the difficult festive period.
But Childline Andalucia is not just for Christmas, it will offer multilingual support to young people all year round.
Caring mother-of-four Tracey-Leigh Bennett, who has lived in Manilva for over 20 years, set up the charity after realising there was no multilingual child support service in Spain.
Childline Andalucia launches with its ‘Kids & Teens’ website on December 14, just in time for the festive period, offering help, support, news and entertainment.
“I feel overwhelmed – it has been two years of extremely hard work and we are jumping for joy to launch before Christmas,” Bennett told the Olive Press.
“Christmas can be a really stressful time especially in low income families or if kids are surrounded by alcoholism or drugs.”
She continued: “I feel humbled by the amount of people that have helped so far, we’ve got a rock solid team and are excited to be launching the telephone helpline in the new year.”
Bennett has worked non-stop for two years with numerous child protection companies and has special links with Childline South Africa.
The charity desperately needs a major sponsor and €48,000 to launch the physical office with helplines and qualified, experienced counsellors.
Visit www.childlineandalucia.org for more information.
good idea, some of the things I saw when I lived there were awful, these parents are proberly running away from social services uk.
Spain is not a good place for teenagers and its about time there was some help and support for families of teenagers that get in with the wrong crowd