Tackling the issues faced by Marbella’s youth
The Harbour Marbella hosted Nicole King’s United Nationalities of Marbella Summit on November 18th, once again bringing together community minded individuals and businesses to help others. This event shone a spotlight on the problems that the younger generation of international residents are facing. These include; a lack of career opportunities and work experience and the alarming increase in suicide attempts by 10-24 year olds.
Led by Nicole King and Georgina Shaw, this event united influential members of the community, business leaders, suicide prevention charities and representatives of Marbella Town Hall to brainstorm how to help the youth of Marbella. Remedios Bocanegra, Foreign residents Councillor from Marbella Town Hall welcomed guests and thanked them for their commitment to Marbella. Mirijana Stefanovic, the President of Marbella International University Centre explained the issues that our youngsters are facing and why they need our help. Finally, Ana Lancho and José Manuel Dolader from suicide prevention charity La Barandilla and Brenda Cuby GibSams also discussed the growing problem of youth suicide. José Manuel shared some concerning statistics, such as the fact that the amount of youth deaths from suicide is double the amount of those dying in road traffic accidents and that the amount of under 10s taking their own lives has drastically increased.
Nicole King urged people to take action to make Marbella a better place for the younger generation. She asked for support from businesses and individuals in creating safe hangout spaces for teens, offering more internships and career opportunities for youngsters and expand the suicide prevention hotline from La Barandilla to be 24-7 and have Spanish and English speakers available.
All attendees brainstormed solutions and discussed the challenging facing the youth of today. Students from Marbella International University Centre were able to have their say and urged businesses to give them more practical work experience and responsibility to apply what they have learnt to real world.
Organiser Nicole King believes that together we can really make a difference and commented, “Thank you to everyone who attended this year’s United Nationalities event. It was really dynamic and I was delighted to see so many people committed to taking action and making things better for the kids growing up in Marbella right now. Now is the moment to tackle these issues and provide solutions for Marbella’s international youth and we look forward to taking practical steps to solving the issues that we discussed in the coming weeks. I would love to hear from anyone who can dedicate their time, or offer their services, experience, or venue, to help our future generations.”
You can find out more by visiting www.u-n-m.org or watching Marbella Now on RTV Marbella.