Statia launches Child Helpline
A child helpline, aimed at children and youngsters from 8 – 21 years old, will be launched on St. Eustatius on March 16th 2022. It is a telephone helpline for children and young persons who are searching for information about any topic that they may have questions about. The helpline will provide service from 2 pm to 6 pm daily ; calls will be free and anonymous.
The Child Helpline is a collaboration between the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS), the unit Social Support of the Public Entity St. Eustatius and the Child Helpline of Aruba, “Telefon pa Hubentud”. The persons answering the calls are coaches which were trained by our team of social workers from the Unit Social Support to better understand the culture of St. Eustatius. Children and youth can talk with these trained coaches about any topic or ask any question that they may have, or just share an experience.
The name of this helpline was selected from 42 entries of the ‘Suggest a name’ competition on St. Eustatius last year, by children and young persons between the ages 8 to 21. On March 9th the winning name of the Child Helpline will be announced via the radio station PJB50 Radio Statia during the program ‘Shedding Light’ at 9 am. This will be a live broadcast via the Facebook page of the Government of St. Eustatius https://www.facebook.com/publicentityst.eustatius
So, tune in to find out what is the winning name of our child and youth helpline!
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the planned launch event will not be taking place as was scheduled. Instead, the promotion team of the unit Social Support and Mr. Dion Humphreys will visit grades 5 to 8 of all primary schools and the secondary school on the island. The students will be informed about the helpline, shown the website and will be given promotional materials with the information of the Child Helpline.
