Berkshire Lowland Search & Rescue is urging followers to retweet the messages
A search and rescue team is backing an online campaign to find missing children.
Berkshire Lowland Search & Rescue will join television broadcaster Stephen Fry’s Big Tweet for Missing Children on Friday. The event is organised by the charity Missing People.
The Twitter campaign coincides with International Missing Children’s Day, and the search team will be taking part in the social media exercise, which will see the charity Tweet a different appeal for a missing child every 30 minutes for 24 hours.
Kris Manning, chair of Berkshire Lowland Search & Rescue Team said: “We are delighted to be able to support this important campaign and to encourage our followers on Twitter to do the same.
“It would be wonderful if we could bring a child to safety on International Missing Children’s Day.”
Stephen Fry, a patron of Missing People, added: “A staggering 140,000 children go missing in the UK every year.
On International Missing Children’s Day, I will once again join the charity Missing People in harnessing the power of Twitter to help find missing children via The Big Tweet for Missing Children.
“You can take part too, by retweeting the appeals for missing children that the charity will tweet every 30 minutes.
“On this day, the charity will also be launching 116 000 – the new hotline number to call or text for support if you or someone you love goes missing.
So please add #116000 to all your tweets and help to spread the word about this important new number. You never know when someone you love might need it.”
Berkshire Lowland Search & Rescue is known by the acronym Sebev from its original name South East Berkshire Emergency Volunteers, and undertakes searches for Thames Valley Police with highly trained volunteers to search for high-risk vulnerable missing persons in Berkshire such as young children or those with dementia.
All of Sebev’s members are unpaid volunteers who are trained in the latest search techniques, casualty care and search management. The team is the oldest lowland search and rescue and civil contingency support team in the United Kingdom and is a member team of the Association of Lowland Search & Rescue.
More details of the Big Tweet are on the Missing People website.
