By Alejandro Rivera, Senior Solutions Engineer

Today I saw my 5-year-old daughter running through the garden yelling, “Abu! Abu!” (short for Abuela, grandmother). “Look! We are picking murtas!” (Murta is a small berry type of fruit that can be harvested in Autumn here in Chile. They have a very unique floral and sweet flavor.)

Her abu says to her: “Oh my, these are lovely!”

My daughter replies with excitement: “Yes, abu! I’m going to prepare a dessert with these. I’ll mix them with other fruits and orange juice!”

These little moments that I get to see, watching my daughter’s genuine and pure feeling of happiness, make my day.

The feeling fades away quickly though. As I look back at my computer screen, I see the reports that I am preparing for our Aselo helpline partners to submit to the annual Child Helpline International data collection survey. The reports reveal the complex issues that so many children struggle with, each issue a burden too heavy to bear in silence. Many of these children turn to helplines when they don’t know who else to talk to. The most common issue for which children seek assistance: Mental Health.

In Chile, for example, close to 60% of the helpline contacts received by Línea Libre (a free national helpline service for young people which uses our Aselo system) from children up to 15 years old are about mental health related issues, ranging from anxiety to thoughts of suicide. This is a trend we are seeing from most of our helpline partners using Aselo around the world — the data shows that around half of all contacts from young people relate to mental health concerns. This is a striking proportion, especially considering that mental health is just one among ten or more categories of assistance typically offered by helplines.

While mental health is “the big problem,” there are others, like violence, which includes sexual abuse, bullying, and domestic violence. Twenty percent of the contacts from youth pertain to reports of violence.

These issues are highlighted in a short documentary produced by The Video Consortium’s Solutions Storytelling Project. Created by Chilean filmmaker Nicole Kramm, the documentary shares stories from Línea Libre helpline counselors who support thousands of Chilean youth with the help of Aselo, our cloud-based omnichannel helpline software. Hopefully this documentary will bring more awareness to the dire and evolving issues facing young people and the day-to-day challenges helplines face to be able to respond to the needs of children in crisis

There is good news though: I’ve seen a growing movement of child helpline initiatives around the world that are working to fight this crisis on a daily basis powered by their most valuable resource: counselors.

Counselors are the heroes that nobody hears of. Unrecognized and unappreciated, they spend their days or work overnight shifts giving counsel to our kids; they listen and provide guidance to every child, youth, or even adult seeking assistance through local helplines. They are present, with empathy and without judgement, when kids don’t know who to reach out to and feel they don’t have anyone else. These are people who must build tremendous psychological strength because the burden is heavy, and it piles up over time with no end in sight. Yet they continue to fight on the front lines of this crisis, unyielding and unwavering.

Sadly, many helplines struggle to stay afloat, particularly in Latin America and Africa. The lack of funding and resources have forced helplines to reduce their operating hours and/or reduce their staff. In countries like Chile, governments have not provided the financial support that these helplines need, in spite of the fact that helplines are providing an important public/social service and have a profound positive impact in our society. With more financial support, helplines would be able to expand and have the capacity to help even more children

Helplines should be focusing on how to improve their services or reach more children, instead of worrying about how or if they can continue to operate in the next few months.

Today, at lunch, I saw my daughter trying the dessert she prepared. She starts dancing with her shoulders while eating it and that means: “it is delicious”. My wife and I tried it, too; we looked at each other and we started dancing as well. We all laughed.

Don’t all kids deserve this, too?