Children’s Help Line Seeks Children’s Art Works

30 Sep 03

What’s Up, the national help line for children and young people, has answered 114,000 calls from children and young people throughout New Zealand in the last year and is now asking children to send in pictures they have made to decorate the walls of its offices.

What’s Up Executive Director Grant Taylor explained that this is a fun way for children in the community to interact with What’s Up other than using the help line.

“Our callers contact us anonymously and the discussion is mostly about their issues and concerns. This is a way that all children and young people can interact with the service that is less problem-focussed and our staff would all love to see their art work on our walls”, said Mr Taylor

Each month, pictures will be randomly chosen and displayed on the What’s Up walls. The names of the chosen artists will be listed on the What’s Up website (www.whatsup.co.nz) and one lucky artist’s name will be drawn to win a package of food products supplied by the sponsors of What’s Up. There is no competition element to this, with every artist having an equal chance of being chosen.

People aged between 5 and 18 are eligible to use What’s Up and send in art works. Full details of the request for art can be found on the What’s Up website.

Children and young people can speak to a trained Counsellor at What’s Up for help with any issue on 0800 WHATSUP (0800 942 87 87) between noon and midnight, seven days a week.