DSWD creates new Twitter account to rescue street children

Christmas season is in the air and so is those street children begging for some money or food across every corners of Metro Manila.

To make sure that every street children will be protected, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) announced on Thursday that they are asking the help of fellow Filipinos to rescue these children begging and sleeping on the streets.

DSWD launched a separate Twitter account where people can report the location of these street children. Through @savestritchild Twitter account, concerned citizens can immediately tweet the streets where they last saw the street children. A message format was also provided to make sure tweets include complete details:

"saveastritchild – (complete name of street or intersection) – (nearest landmark) - Metro Manila City – (time of sighting)"

UPDATE as of 11/20/2012: DSWD updated their Twitter account to @saveastreetkids which is more appropriate rather than the jejemon-like username.

According to DSWD secretary Corazon "Dinky" Soliman, they are hoping that Filipinos will take this opportunity to show their care by participating in the campaign as citizen journalists.

DSWD will be working with barangay officials as well to discourage children from begging in the streets of the metro.

This isn't the first government-initiated campaign in social media. Before, the government also used Twitter to report roads that are in need of construction via the "lubak2normal" project.

This post was first published at KabayanTech.

Posted in: Citizen Journalism, Corazon Dinky Soliman, Department of Social Welfare and Development, DSWD, street children, Twitter

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