Proud of the progress achieved and with the same enthusiasm as on the first day, the members of the Foreigners Department of the Mijas Town Hall received on Monday 7th the award given by Sur In English on theoccasion of its 40th anniversary. The presentation took place during a gala held at the Meliá Don Pepe hotel in Marbella and was attended by the area's technicians Katja Thirion and Laura Córdoba, the councillor for Foreigners, Mario Bravo (PP), and the former founder of the department, Ana Skou, who is now retired.

"We wanted to recognise people who have been pioneers like us and the Mijas Foreigners Office started in 1985, just after Sur In English started, so we have started and grown together and we have shared the need to provide information to English speaking people", said the editor of the Sur In English newspaper, Rachel Haynes.

 

"We started working in March 1985. I started at the old Mijas Town Hall as an interpreter, but I soon realised that translating was not enough and that it was necessary to provide information on how public administrations worked, mainly the town hall, but also all the other areas", recalled Skou, who collected the award proud of the achievements of a department that was unique in the whole country at the time. 

 

A well-deserved award

"It is truly a great honour to receive this recognition and we are very happy that they have thought of us. The founder of the Foreigners‘ Department is Ana Skou and I am continuing with the project together with my colleague Laura Córdoba and I really want to emphasise that today we have the same enthusiasm as 20 or 40 years ago", added Katja Thirion, a technician. 

For his part, the councillor Mario Bravo complimented the Department of Foreigners for winning over many foreigners, for decades, to stay and live in our municipality. "As we always say in the Department of Foreigners, if you have not been lucky enough to be born in Mijas, have the wisdom to come and live with us", concluded the councillor in a few words to the public after being in charge of delivering the recognition to the technicians. 

With the arrival of foreigners at Mijas, said the councillor, "Mijas has grown not only in quantity but also in quality and that is why we are so proud, both of the work that Sur In English has done on its own, as well as the work we have done in Mijas. That is why we think it is so good and very logical to give the award to the Foreigners Department, founded, created and directed by Ana Skouit until her retirement a few months ago".

 

Four decades dedicated to foreigners

The history of Sur In English and the history of the Mijas Foreigners Department has practically gone hand in hand. "For four decades we have been able to give information to all the English speaking people in Southern Spain and also information about Spain to people all over the world through our website", added Haynes. As did the Mijas Foreigners Department, which started in 1985, explained Skou.

The idea came about when "there was no information of any kind for foreigners. The Department was created and the word spread immediately. So we not only had foreigners from Mijas but from Benalmádena, Torremolinos, Marbella, Málaga... from all over. We had calls from all over Spain asking for information and help because, at that time, it was the boom of residential tourism", added Skou. 

"The newspaper Sur In English wanted to inform foreigners and we wanted to transform them from tourists to residents by making them happy here in our land", said Bravo. "Approximately 40 percent of the population in Mijas, some 96,000 inhabitants, were not born in Spain, but nevertheless wanted to come to Mijas to live with us. This has made us more cultured, more open to the world, they have taught us languages, literature, culture in general, customs....." For the councillor, this department "has worked very well" during all these years and "we have to continue to do so".

According to the councillor, the Department of Foreigners must now "perhaps explore other means of communication", with the aim of adapting to the current times so that "people are up to date with what is happening in Mijas, can fulfil their obligations and enjoy all their rights".

 

Sur In English, 40 years of history

On July 20th 1984, Prensa Malagueña launched SUR in English, a revolutionary publication that would mark a milestone on the Costa del Sol. It was the first newspaper published in English and aimed at the international community living in Malaga. That first edition had 16 pages, with local and international news with the aim of meeting the demand of property owners, new residents and all types of visitors who until then lacked an exclusive information channel in their own language. 

 

To celebrate, the newspaper has organised a series of activities that will take place throughout the year. The first was the 40th anniversary gala, an event that became a meeting point for those who connect the foreign and Spanish communities. During the gala, in addition to the Department of Foreigners of Mijas, the Panorama agency, the English Cemetery Foundation and the British Chamber of Commerce of Spain received awards. "In these 40 years we have managed to reach the entire foreign community in the Costa del Sol. A very important challenge", concluded Haynes. 

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