Colombian app Kid Rescue lets you report illegal child labor
Kid Rescue, the new Colombian app launched by Telefonica Telecom in Colombia.
The Kid Rescue app from phone company Telefonica Telecom has a clear mission: Encourage people to document illegal child labor in Colombia.
“Help us identify and locate a working child and help us find him, so we can help them get an education,” says its website.
This non-profit app encourages people to document illegal child labor by taking geotagged photographs that prove it.
Social causes have been fueled by smartphones in recent years. As Springwise reports, technology has now become a tool to help solve crimes as is the case of Hollaback, an an app that enables women to share stories of assaults and post images of harassers.
The concept is similar with Kid Rescue. The app’s functioning couldn’t be simpler. It consists in four easy steps described in its website:
Users can geo-tag their location at the time of the spotting.
If possible, a photograph of the child will help.
A description of what the user has witnessed will also be helpful.
And last but not least, sharing this will help its distribution.
There is also a demo of how the app works.
Once the information is sent, a database will be created, which can only be accessed by social workers linked to Fundación Telefónica.
A report from the the Colombian National Department of Statistics of 2011 claims that around 9.2 percent of children (5-17) in the country were working. The Kid Rescue’s team claims that 1.6 million Colombian children are not going to school.
Since the app was launched in February, Kid Rescue has helped over 1,000 working children to be identified and over 60 have been taken off the streets according to Springwise.
Hopefully this is just the beginning of a social-cause trend and there will be plenty of these apps to come.
