Arrecife opens its free afternoon childcare: 60 places from 17 September

Arrecife town hall has opened registration for the Tardes Conciliadoras, a free childcare service for parents who work in the afternoon and have nowhere to leave their children. It starts on Thursday 17 September.

How it works

The venue is the Casa de la Juventud, central, with both indoor and outdoor space. Hours: Monday to Friday, 4pm to 8pm. Sixty places, for children aged 3 to 12 registered as residents of Arrecife.

What sets it apart from many similar schemes is the flexibility: families are not required to leave their children for the full four hours. You drop them off and collect them when you need to — one day and not the next, one hour or three.

Why

"We want families to know this service is there and that they can use it when they need it. We don't want children left alone at home because their parents are working," says social welfare councillor Maite Corujo.

It is a sentence that carries more weight on Lanzarote than elsewhere. On an island where hotel, restaurant and shop shifts end when everyone else is having dinner, the afternoon is the real hole in a family's day, and until now it was plugged however possible: grandparents, a neighbour, nobody.