A RELATIVELY new youth club that caters for children with disabilities and their families has been coming up with new, innovative ways to support people and bring them together during the coronavirus crisis.

Tanga, which usually meets at The Torch Centre in Hexham on a weekly basis, was set up by a group of parents who were concerned that there was nowhere inclusive for them to bring all their children together.

Founder Katherine Miller explained: "We are a group of parents who all have children with disabilities, but ome of us have children with no disabilities too.

"We were talking about the different places we could go, but they didn't cater to everyone's specific needs.

"There was one place we thought was suitable, but it's 45 minutes drive and a lot of our children have ADHD and autism, and it doesn't do them much good to do that much travel.

"We were sat around thinking it was so sad we couldn't take our children where there was something for them all to do, so we decided to take matters into our own hands.

"We're all committed to inclusivity, and what we've created, it's just beautiful to look at."

The group was formed around a year ago and opened to the public in November.

However, their weekly meetings have fallen victim to the coronavirus crisis.

But while they can't come together face-to-face, they have been meeting together virtually to stay connected.

Katherine continued: "It's been tricky. At the start of lockdown, we said 'right, what can we do?'

"We're running a virtual youth club to keep all the children connected. We've also done a couple of videos that lots of families took part in. One of them has more than 18,000 views.

"We've also just delivered some activity bags to all the children - we've got more than 100 children joined up now. One of the things in them was a grow your own sunflower kit, so we've had a sunflower growing competition.

"We're just trying to keep people engaged in a different way, because some of the children find the virtual club too stressful."

A funding campaign has been set up to help the group through the coronavirus crisis. Donations can be made at gofundme.com/f/help-tanga-through-and-beyond-covid19