EestiIf someone’s child goes missing and he/she is not found in the first 24 hours, then it is the worst possible ordeal one can imagine. The parent needs to have the confidence that everything is done, and as fast and as thoroughly as possible to find the child.
The standard for missing children’s alert system is AMBER Alert of USA http://www.amberalert.gov/, which is an acronym of America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. It is in remembrance of Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered in 1996 in Arlington, Texas. The alert system started as a local initiative, but in 2003 it became in USA a nationwide alert system that is coordinated by Assistant Attorney General of Department of Justice. In USA, the Amber Alert operative notifications are broadcast on radio and television and in internet and by phone messages. In addition, the messages will also reach electronic billboards and also Facebook and Google users.
KatrinAlert is an alert system of children in Estonia that was inititated by Foundation Missing (SA Kadunud) with the purpose of notifying the public as widely and as fast as possible in the case of a missing minor that is suspected to be a victim of child abduction in order to gain assistance.
Around the world, tens and tens of children go missing every day…
…children, who do not come home from school; children, who do not notice while playing that they have left their home far behind and it is suddenly getting dark; children, who get off bus at the wrong station and get lost; children, who are stopped by a car and inside there is sitting a woman with a trustworthy smile, sunglasses and a lapdog, who invites them to sit in the car and who knows the child’s mother’s name and assures them that she was the one, who had asked to pick the child up from school that day…
On 16th of January 2016, Foundation Missing will launch a nationwide campaign to inform people about the alert system set up to search for the missing children
The goal for Foundation Missing is to create a nationwide volunteer alert system for missing children that would enable to send the information about a missing child already during the first hour operatively to as many news media channels as possible across the country and if necessary, to other countries as well.
A wider-scale goal for us is to share the agreements and logistical solutions Foundation Missing has achieved with Estonian government agencies, when the state is ready to join the Europe-wide missing children alert system Amber Alert Europe http://www.amberalert.eu/
Why KatrinAlert?
16 years ago, on 16th of January 2000, 13 year old Katrin vanishes without a trace. She sets out at half past two from Veskiküla, a small place near Rummu in Harjumaa to visit a friend in Rummu and study for English. Her shortcut to Rummu takes her past a prison camp of Ämari. She does not make it to her friend, her case remains unsolved…
With the permission of Katrin’s mother and in line with the volunteer organisations of United States of America and the Russian Federation, we name the Estonian missing children’s alert system after a missing child named Katrin with the intent of drawing attention to a case that has remained unsolved for 16 years and in hope to receive new information that might bring clarity to the vanishing of 13 year old Katrin.
With the creation of the alert system, the great goal of Foundation Missing for the year 2016 is that no case of a missing child under the age of 18 would stay unsolved in our country.
All of us, dear friends, can help in solving missing people’s cases. One of the easiest ways to do that, is to make a donation to the search fund of Foundation Missing: Kadunud SA
EE441010220248190225 explanation: donation for the search fund.
Thank you to all of you, who are willing to help us!