Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Search for the missing on Net

Special Correspondent

Website will be launched today

VIJAYAWADA: Finding missing children at the click of a button may have looked like a distant dream till now, but not any longer. www.missingchildsearch.net, or MCS as it is called, is a website that will facilitate exactly this kind of search.

Hosted by The Young at Risk (YaR), a nationwide network of organisations working among children, it will enable the search of missing children from any part of the country.

Any one who loses his or her child can lodge a complaint on the website by entering all the details of the child and by uploading a photograph. They can also visit the website to find out if their child has been traced any where, in which case the details will be posted online by likeminded organisations or individuals.

Initiative

The website, which will be formally launched here on May 29, will be constantly updated by Homelink Network, a network of organisations spread over 65 cities in 13 States.

The Nithari incident has opened the eyes of many and the awareness of the need for a database of missing children is now very high among people, the Government and the NGOs, and hence, the initiative," says Fr. Thomas Koshy, national executive director of Home Link and Missing Child Search, who is associated with Navajeevan Bala Bhavan (NBB).

NBB, along with SKCV Children Trust and Forum for Child Rights here, will act as the hub for coordinating the nationwide search for missing children in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. It will liaise with 14 official networking NGOs, police, other organisations and concerned individuals in Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai and Baroda.

"The software will be upgraded in future to enable the search by biometrics and photographs," says M. Krishna Prasad of SKCV Children Trust, a member of the team that developed the software.

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