Child Helpline International

What is a Child Helpline?

A child helpline is a phone service that links children in need of care and protection to services and resources. It is an important intervention strategy for child protection. Child helplines across the world annually receive over 11 million calls from children who call when they need crisis intervention, rehabilitation, counselling or just someone to talk to. These helplines reach out to children and young people through many means of communication, be it a post card, the radio station, the phone or via text messaging and confidential internet chat rooms. They take an active role in responding to children’s calls by providing medical assistance, reuniting missing children with their families, rescuing sexually abused young people and child labourers and even rehabilitating HIV/Aids victims. Whatever the method, helplines provide an invaluable service to the lives of children: the sense of dignity that comes with being heard.

What is Child Helpline International?

The idea of a global network of helplines with a helpline “helpdesk” was born during a helpline meeting in India in 2001. This helpdesk would provide support for existing helplines as well countries interested in initiating helplines, especially economically developing countries. Jeroo Billimoria agreed to set up Child Helpline International (CHI) in October 2003. CHI was founded on the belief that children and young people have rights, and that they alone are the best individuals to identify their problems.

CHI aims towards a world where telecommunication allows children and young people to be heard one by one, and through their voices shape the world and realise their rights.

What has Child helpline International achieved since its inception in October 2003?

Child Helplines as a global movement: At inception CHI had 50 network members and 11 countries interested in starting a child helpline from Africa, America, Asia, the Middle east and Europe. At the end of 2005, network membership grew to 78 excluding 12 countries interested in starting child helplines. This is a clear indication that the global child helplines movement has begun gaining momentum.

An interesting trend has been CHI’s membership profile, where the greatest increase in members have been amongst developing countries. At inception, we had 16 members from developing countries and at the end of 2005 this number grew to 38, more than a two-fold increase. The number of members from developed countries also increased, but at a less significant rate from 34 to 40.

Principles, Standards and Practices: CHI members feel that all helplines must meet certain criteria to be a part of the network. CHI has developed Principles, Standards and Practices to outline minimum processes and strategies that a helpline should implement. The objectives of the checklist are twofold, and includes: assisting helplines in assessing their strengths and weaknesses; and guiding the CHI Secretariat in the design of regionally-specific training.

Connecting to Children: is CHI’s annual publication. It is a compilation of data collected from member helplines. It provides information about the helpline, a profile of the caller and/or the child concerned and the reasons why children call

Advocacy: With a strong membership base that provides coherent information on the reasons why children call helplines, CHI can use these voices of children to influence policy makers at the local, national and international levels.

• Telecoms: Children are increasingly exposed to mobile phones, sms, mms and the internet. For this reason, CHI has forged partnerships with the telecoms sector. It has been a forerunner in using telecommunications as an intervention strategy for child protection.

Some of CHI’s achievements include articles in the Tunis Declaration at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS). Article 92 specifically mentions the need for every country to have a local, easy to remember, 3-4 digit toll free number.

Following WSIS at the World Telecoms Development Conference (WTDC) in Doha, CHI and the Dutch Government successfully amended Resolution 38 to include children.

In addition to getting children on the telecoms agenda, CHI is actively working with telecom regulators to establish one number for all helplines of a particular region. CHI has already begun their efforts in Europe with the The EU Written Declaration on Child Helplines.

• VAC: CHI is a primary resource for children’s data at a global level. In 2005 it provided data to the United Nations Violence Against Children study.

• Networking: CHI works closely with other child focussed NGOs, UN bodies and the private sector to create a voice for children and thereby influence policy decisions. In addition, CHI is a founding member of the Connect the World Initiative. This initiative provides a forum whereby organizations are able to forge mutually beneficial partnerships

CHI’s future initiatives

• World telecom’s Day: May 17th 2007 is World Telecoms Day. This years theme is children and youth. CHIs goal is to ensure that 1,4 billion children between the ages of 5 and 18 are connected.

• The Global Portal on Children: is an online counselling service that CHI launched at WSIS. It provides children with a multilingual and safe gateway to the helpline in their country. The global portal can be found at www.chiworld.org