Saturday, October 9, 2010

New UK Charity Uses Social Networks to Find Missing Children Worldwide

The 8th August 2010 was a special day for a group of very special people - the team behind HELP FIND MY CHILD. This dedicated team specialise in combining the latest technologies with the power of online communities, such as Facebook and Twitter, to make a big impact in the global search for missing children. The use of modern technology means that they can get the word out about missing children very fast, and they reach a huge on-line audience. Their enormous contribution in this field was, on that day, recognised through the award of charitable status. (HELP FIND MY CHILD: Registered Charity: SC041522)

Like ourselves in the Find Madeleine forum, the volunteers in Help Find My Child were brought together because of one missing child, Madeleine McCann. The founders are all mums who have full-time jobs. The work they do is undertaken in their spare time, although it is clear that this ‘spare time’ is often 8 to 16 hours a day. Their unstinting dedication to the plight of missing children is enormous.

Having linked up because of Madeleine, it soon became clear to the Help Find My Child team that there needed to be more support for the families left behind, and a more pro-active approach to sharing the information world-wide. We have first-hand knowledge of the fear, frustration and despair felt by families from some of our own members who had missing children over the past 3 years. Thankfully, two of our members’ children have since been found and returned home. It is a fact that 1 in 6 missing children are located through the use of posters and Help Find My Child has enlisted the help of the global network to get posters distributed. This small team makes sure that information is available wherever people gather on the internet.

Help Find My Child release video appeals; maximise visibility; reach out through social networks, send real time alerts and updates - and raise awareness every minute of every day across the blogosphere. They believe that the on-line community is a powerful force in the search for missing children. A tweet or sharing their information could potentially reach the person who has the vital clue to bring a child home. We will never know how many children their speedy information has helped.

HELP FIND MY CHILD is a small charity making a big impact with the help and support of the on-line community. They never give up.

All at Find Madeleine salute you and congratulate you on achieving charitable status. This accolade is well deserved. May your work continue for a long time, and may you continue making a difference.

To find out more about the charity visit http://www.helpfindmychild.net or follow them on twitter@helpfindmychild



Children featured in this missing video: Andrew Thompson, Haleigh Cummings, Madeleine McCann, Andrew Gosden, Adji Desir, Amy Fitzpatrick, Kayla Berg, Alexander and Christopher Watkins, Jessie Foster, Danica Childs, Gabriel Johnson, Hassani Campbell


~ Please subscribe to the Help Find My Child channel and share this video ~
~ Missing kids need your support ~

2 comments:

Sara Huizenga said...

Stephen Watkins is a member of Peace4 the Missing and recently left the following info on our network ... sharing here as well in hopes that his boys may soon come home to him ...

“Watkins Missing Children” in the 4th Annual Mashable Awards NEWS Article by: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/300628

Sara Huizenga
Founder of Peace4 the Missing
http://peace4missing.ning.com

To vote for the Watkins video:
1- GOTO - http://mashable.com/awards/votes/category/8?c=8
2 - LOG-IN Using - FaceBook / Twitter
3 - NOMINATE LINK - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ6ixtePgyI
4 - CATEGORY - Best Web Video

Tezza said...

Thank you Sara for your comment.
I felt that it deserved to be an article in itself.
You can find it featured here:
http://findmadeleineblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/watkins-missing-children.html