Romanian Center for Missing & Sexually Exploited Children

For FOCUS, volunteers are an important part of the organization, because on one hand they support the actual activity of the center (intervening in and preventing the cases of missing and sexual exploited children) and on the other hand they promote the center. The need for volunteers results from the fact that FOCUS investigates in cooperation with the police, cases of missing and sexually exploited children at a national level, whereas the premises of the center is in Bucharest.

“Why do we need volunteers?”

• Intervention
• putting up and taking off posters of missing children – activity which implies receiving/printing posters and then putting up/taking them off from a certain location and also the cooperation of the volunteer with the county coordinator, respectively the national coordinator of volunteers so that the action of putting and taking off the posters in a certain area to be done as quickly as possible;
• identifying and permanent updating the most visible locations (public places with a great flow of children) for putting up posters;
• effective participation in searching for missing children in open spaces, only at the request of the police and under its guidance;
• Prevention – active involvement of volunteers in the prevention and public awareness campaigns regarding the phenomenon of missing and sexually exploited children - this activity refers mainly at disseminating promotional materials during campaigns initiated by Focus, organizing meetings with parents, children and professors for promoting the public awareness campaigns.
• Administrative activities: preparing monthly reports, expenses claims, updating the database, etc.
• Other activities depending on the needs of the organization – participating in fund-raising events or pro bono activities regarding the vocational trening of the volunteer (e.g. pro bono lawyer for cases)

FOCUS constantly delivers campaigns for recruiting volunteers, necessary both in the activities of the Call Center department and for developing the national network of volunteers.

• distribution map of volunteers at a national level
• what is already on the website, how to get involved
• photos with volunteers and with the activities in which they were involved

STATISTICS

see statistic page

VOLUNTEERS ACTIVITIES

Summer 2010 Campaign

As every year since its establishment, the Romanian Center for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children - Focus developed in 2010 a two months information and prevention campaign regarding the disappearances of children and the online safety. The campaign named “I am informed therefore I am safe!” was held at the seaside with the help of 35 volunteers and consisted in distributing a number of:

• 7000 bracelets with 116 000 (single emergency number to report missing children);
• 7000 for fans of offline and online safety tips for children;
• 1000 flyers with information on reporting child sexual abuse images found on the Internet.

Volunteers involved in this campaign have demonstrated commitment and responsibility, and due to them, we managed to pass on, once again, helpful information to both children and parents that have been at the seaside this summer. We want to thank them and we hope that we will have the same great collaboration for future projects.

Safer Internet Campaign 2010

"Safernet.ro offline shoot a warning about the dangers of the online environment"

At the beginning of 2010, during the International Safer Internet Day, FOCUS launched Safernet.ro, a hotline available 24 hours from 24 for collecting and managing notifications regarding online content that is illegal or harmful to children, developed within the “Safe. Info” project financed by the European Commission.

Safernet information campaign, developed by the Romanian Center for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children - FOCUS in order to eliminate child pornography from the Internet, continued with an offline component in the summer of 2010.

Thus, in order to attract public attention on online child pornography, in July - August 2010, a laptop-shaped facility was located in Bucharest Mall, where 14 volunteers together with FOCUS team provided information to the public about hotline and the importance of reporting.

By Safernet.ro, pictures, video clips or other materials found on the Internet regarding child pornography, adult pornography unprotected and accessible to children or situations of seducing over the Internet for committing a sexual assault on a child, can be easily reported by all Internet users under the protection of anonymity.

Campaign "Volunteers for call center department"

Since the launch of 116000, the single European hotline for reporting missing children, the number of calls at the Focus call center has greatly increased. Due to this, in June 2010, Focus Center developed an extensive volunteer recruitment campaign for call-center.

After an detailed selection of the persons who applied to be volunteers in our organization and after a training session held by our center experts, where were submitted the activities in which volunteers will be involved, there was a period of six months work effectively with them.

Therefore, from June 2010 Focus benefits from the experience and involvement of 12 volunteers who participate together with the team in various activities:

• receiving and recording calls within call center department
• providing professional support and advice in crisis situations
• administrative activities
• information and prevention campaigns developed by the organization.

We were pleasantly surprised to note the enthusiasm reflected in volunteer’s work in the accumulation of new information, excellent communication and relationship skills, empathy, leadership, punctuality, responsibility, perseverance and conscientiousness in carrying out assigned tasks. We thank them for their support!