How do you feel today? – a campaign to report child abuse by Telekom Romania and Children’s Phone Association

Telekom Romania and Children’s Phone Association launched “How do you feel today?” campaign, whereby cases of children abuse can be reported, including online harassment and physical harassment. Campaign’s platform, www.116111.ro, is an educational platform that brings together useful information on how children abuse cases can be reported, as well as ways to request specialized counseling for such cases.

The campaign also includes a mobile app, HappyGraff, which works as a diary where teenagers can record their emotional state whenever they feel the need and have access to helpful tips on how to manage different situations with difficult emotional states. The mobile app runs on Android devices, and is available for free in GooglePlay and can also be downloaded from the campaign website.

Beyond the obvious benefits of the internet and digitization, the online environment also has a dark side. Years ago we assumed the responsibility to fight against the negative effects of the online environment and we have been involved in online hazard awareness projects, especially for vulnerable categories, such as children. Cyberbullying is just one of the phenomena that grow and make victims among children and adolescents. We are happy to have this information and prevention campaign in partnership with Asociaţia Telefonul Copilului, our longstanding partner in protecting children in Romania from abuse. We believe we can reduce the harassment risks among adolescents at a vulnerable age, who can make wrong decisions and become either victims or abusers, by educating them on the responsible use of online platforms. We chose to develop a mobile application to make it easier for the younger generation, which is digital native

Florina Șerban,

CSR Project Manager, Telekom Romania

In 2017, the specialists from Children’s Phone conducted online 815 counseling sessions for children and young people, tackling with issues like abuses over them or their friends (50.89% cases), need for psychological counseling regarding lack of self-confidence or issues related to the physical aspect (31,34%), need for legal counseling on issues related to the negative effects of parental divorce and custody (6.12%) or measures to combat domestic violence (protection order and restriction order), in 2.38% of the cases.

In the era of online communications, it is natural to address children and young people using the same environment. We want to be sure that they have easy access to our services and the fact that only last year we had more than 800 online counseling requests at Asociaţia Telefonul Copilului proves that we have correctly anticipated their needs.

Supporting children and young people through the tools and channels they feel comfortable with, and providing effective services to prevent or solve difficult situations for them, sometimes even limit-situations, is the main objective of the online platform www.116111.ro and also of the HappyGraff application developed by Asociaţia Telefonul Copilului and made available today to the public. HappyGraff is the first mobile application that provides access to children and adolescents to counseling services, directly from the mobile phone. We thank Telekom Romania for the financial and logistic support provided in developing these two new communication tools. We thank to Friends Advertising for the support offered in the development of the mobile application, the first of its kind offered by our organization to our beneficiaries

Cătălina Surcel,

Executive Director, Children’s Phone Association

Data centralized by Children’s Phone Association for 2017 shows that, for the first time, the emotional abuse is the most common form of abuse, in a percentage of 34.81% of the cases recorded at 116 111, a free number provided by Telekom Romania.

More information on child abuse through online and offline harassment and its implications, as well as on how to deal with this kind of situations are available on the website www.116111.ro. It represents an information tool for both online victims of abuse and harassment and for the ones interested in the topic. In the same time, the website is a contact point for reporting online abuse, by redirecting users to the Child Helpline Number 116 111, a line managed by Children’s Phone Association, supported by Telekom Romania.

Launched few days before the International Children’s Day, the campaign aims to draw attention on the efforts taken to protect children in the virtual space.

Telekom Romania is a dynamic brand, offering fixed and mobile innovative communication services to a broad customer community, using approximately 10 million services. Telekom Romania is present in the Romanian market since 2014, after the joint rebranding of Romtelecom and COSMOTE Romania. Telekom is a brand pertaining to Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies.