Supporting those in distress

THE British Benevolent Fund was founded over a century ago to provide assistance to Britons in Spain facing extreme financial hardship.

Financial difficulties is some‐thing most people face in their lives and whilst challenging can be overcome with thought and planning. Both of these are al‐most impossible when the per‐son has mental illness where making the right decision is diffi‐cult and where holding down a job is even more so.

In the case of John, a 34‐year‐old single British man who lived in Spain, having moved with his parents from the UK when they retired. His condition was such that social interaction caused dis‐tress and he lived in his room and his parents looked after him ‐ he had never worked and relied on his parents for food, lodging and all life’s necessities.

Except that they could not cope ‐ they lived modestly off a small pension and had little to spare for their grown forever at home child who required con‐stant attention ‐ and medication.

Then came Brexit and the realisa‐tion that the social service sup‐ port, medical cover and local help was at risk as they had never registered as residents ‐ and were no longer eligible.

They got in touch with a local charity for support to apply belat‐edly which would take some time to process ‐ however they were confident that having been settled here before the deadline date they were still in with a chance.

But in the meantime, the medicine costs were now high and beyond their small means.

The charity ‐ one of many at the Support in Spain website contacted the BBF to see if we could help.

The BBF mission is to support those in distress and with a child with needs we wanted to help. The issue for the BBF is that wherever possible we seek that any funds are used to overcome a particular challenge ‐ not ongo‐ing support. In this this case all re‐volved around their chances of being approved ‐ which if they were not would mean an unsus‐tainable situation in Spain. We agreed to provide a grant to cov‐er the following six months of medicine costs which would be reviewed depending on the out‐come of their application.

Thankfully within three they were given the green light and their application was approved meaning that all state support would be available as well as that they would be able to continue living in Spain.

The BBF can only help with your help. If you would like to support our mission for Britons in distress in Spain, please visit www.britishbenevolentfund.org

Thank you. Olaf Clayton, Chair BBF.

I’D like to share a con ‐versation I had last week with some friends about a frog.

It all started from a glib comment on how the ‘private’ information shared in our phone calls, messages and emails is being analysed. Everything we read and write is instantaneously evaluated so we can be targeted with specific ad‐verts or promotions rele‐vant to what’s happen ‐ing in our lives.

Until recently ‘the peo‐ple’ have been reluctant to offer any personal de‐tails to anyone, let alone the government. Today

Marbella Moments

BY NICOLE KING

we can’t give them enough information; per‐haps simply because they’ve changed their look and we’re too gullible to realise.

We share everything voluntarily; not just where we live, but who we like, what we like and moreover, what we don’t like. What we don’t share they see any‐way. We are virtually (in all senses of the word) handing over our lives to cyber space and what is most worrying is that for our kids this is the norm.

Our conversation turned to the cars being introduced into the mar‐ket, every new model more automated than the last. A car can park it‐self and a central some ‐thing can lock or unlock, activate or deactivate your vehicle from who knows where.

This led us to talking about being trapped in technology, kids trapped in virtual game worlds and people trapped in the money game and whether we would also become trapped one day by the robots with AI (ar‐tificial intelligence) that have already debated whether it would make sense or not to eradicate humanity. Even people with normal intelligence know the logical answer to that question is yes. We then talked about the process that Hitler took to eradicate sectors of humanity. The process was costly and time‐con‐suming. Firstly identify ‐ing the people, then la ‐belling them, then herding them to concen‐trated areas and then on to the gas chambers. To‐day unfortunately it could all be done so easi‐ly, cheaply and efficient‐ly. In a not too distant fu‐ture if the ‘powers that be’ decided to eradicate a selection of humanity all they’d have to do for example is create a panic to get us all in our cars, centrally implement a mass lockdown and re ‐ motely pilot us all, as if on a conveyor belt, through the extermina ‐tion process. All of us self labelled, packed up and ready to go.

That’s when we start ‐ed talking about the fa ‐ble of the frog. If said frog were to be put in boiling water he would jump out, but if he were to be put in tepid water and heated to boiling point very slowly, he’d be cooked before he re ‐alised what was happen‐ing.

Whether a frog would really do that or not I don’t know, but I do know that our conversa ‐tions left us feeling like we could all very well be the frog that got cooked alive and that humanity may actually be reaching boiling point.