FREE!
SOUTH EDITION
Your English Newspaper
Issue 580
26 NOV - 02 DEC 2010
FUNDAR now in English
Fires burn in La Marina
RTN has been made aware of a situation which is not only extremely damaging to the health of residents but also is in total contradiction of Spanish and EU laws. • p8
Kenny saves the day!
by Louise Clarke
RTN’s Kenny Corris has literally saved the day for PCN and will be appearing at their Winter Fair this Sunday at the Los Arcos Restaurant in Torrevieja. • p24
IVA-Free Zone
Visit RTN’s Property Spotlight section to find out how you can take advantage of Solar in Spain’s IVA Free offer. • p32
Decadence on a whim
Derek Workman returns this week with a visit to El Capricho de la Portuguesa, a casa rural in the tiny village of Benialli. • p34
Water hazards
Noel Eastwell’s weekly golf column talks about injuries incurred as a result of retrieving balls from water hazards. • p63
Jim Brogan, the new NHW President
RTN meets new NHW President
This week RTN met the new Neighbourhood Watch President Jim Brogan who is in charge of the association from Denia to north Almeria in the south of the Costa Blanca. Find out what he has been doing in the first few weeks in office and his plans for the future. See page 4.
FROM MONDAY 29th November, the online information points which give details of social service departments and British and Spanish charities, Infosolidari@, will operate in English, as well as in Valencian and Spanish. The launch of the English version of the FUNDAR initiative took place on Tuesday at the FUNDAR centre in Alicante. More than 300,000 British citizens will now have access to community support via various charities and organisations in their own language. The initial project was launched in August and was covered by RTN, but the online information points were only in Spanish and were therefore useless to the majority of volunteers and charity officials that needed to use the facility. Thanks to the assistance provided by ‘The English Speaking Club’ in El Campello and other volunteers who have helped with the translation, the service can now be accessed easily and
effectively in order to facilitate the gradual integration of British citizens who have difficulties with the official languages of the Valencian Community. The Valencia Regional Ministry for Solidarity and Citizenship is a major partner in the FUNDAR project which has a network of over 70 online information points throughout the Valencian Community. These enable access to information and resources linked to community support. The new English language version will also be useful for residents of other nationalities who can speak English better than the official languages of the Valencian Community, as it will give them access to community associations and help them to integrate. As well as the introduction of the English speaking Infosolidari@ points, FUNDAR also announced the translation into English of its webpage and monthly newsletter. Continued on page 5