Madeleine McCann - we need YOUR help to try and find this little girl.

[ThisIsDavinaPleaseDoNotSwear]

This is slipping from the news and the police are starting to scale down their seraches.

Evidence seems to suggest that Madeline may have been taken to Spain and yet very few people out there are aware of what has happened or what she looks like etc.

We need to send as many emails as we can to Spanish businesses with a poster attachment and highlight this case.

I need mumsnetters to volunteer.

I have called in sick today to get this started but this is a massive task and I cannot do it on my own.

Please let me know if you can help.

exactly lilyloo. Should they devote half an hour to the tsunami... then the hurricane in the US, the 10 minutes to every most prominent missing child in every nation... where do you draw the line?

There is a new poster being distributed now, highlighting the distinguishing feature she has in her right eye:

news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91210-1265416,00.html

Here's the poster

oh thank god, so is this now a new poster, i do hope so it draws away from the fact that she has beautiful blond hair, gives people something definate to look for. IMO

Mumemma's link news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91210-1265416,00.html (sorry can't do links ) also contains the interesting theories of the UK detective interviewed by Sky, that Madeleine wandered off by herself and was abducted from outside the closed supermarket and is being held locally.

Have just watched a video from that link which says an awful lot of different stuff. I hope he is right. John OConnor.

A final thought from my poor little brain before it finally hits the sack...
It is highly likely that whoever committed this dreadful crime would have been watching this family for some time before. I read that the family have been asked to provide the police with their holiday videos and photos. Isn't it far more likely that the perpetrator might have been recorded in someone ELSE'S holiday videos? I know it's a massive task and possibly a long shot, but since Mark Warner and other holiday companies will have the names and addresses of many people who were staying in the resort at the time (some of whom are still there, of course) and who were not interviewed, could they not be asked to lend their holiday recordings to their local police station, especially if they think they might have pictures of the McCanns in the background? Or, at least, just asked to look carefully at their own pictures and recordings. The task of ploughing through them could be shared by the police forces involved or perhaps even by volunteers. What do other MNers think?
Bed now.

Another set of posters announcing the increased reward money - this is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Please download and forward to anyone you can.

www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news1.shtml

I am sick of political correctness and the 'oh we didnt do it for so and so' or 'this could introduce viruses into the system' or' other families wouldn't get this type of response'. I am constantly stunned at the ease at which people find a reason to say no to helping anybody. Just recently I sat waiting at a junction and watched in horror as an elderley gentleman attempted to push his broken down car up an incline in Northwood Middlesex (I was in a queue of traffic). Not one person got out to help him until I (with 3 year old daughter in back of car) pulled up and helped in my high heals to push him off the road. Only then did someone else get out of the car to help. Some may call that stupid, but I would happily do it again. Some of the human race are (including the organisers of Eurovision ) an inert, ignorant, self centred bunch - focussed only on our own wants and needs and oh my goodness offending someone whose might want to enjoy themselves (spoil the mood of Eurovision ) - what a pile of crap....

Regardless of the profession of the parents, every child demands the protection of adults. They are innocents. It just so happens that this one (Madeleine - perhaps down to her parents) has caught the public eye. This demonstrates to me the desire of human nature to help. WE need to set the example to the rest of the inert population and say LIFE IS PRECIOUS regardless of who it is. Just because a search on this scale it hasn't been conducted for another child, doesn't mean we should turn our backs, Shame on anyone that finds it easy to get on with their materialistic lives and 'ignorance is bliss' attitude. God forbid this happens to them. The outpouring of support for the McCanns and the desire to get their daugther back should be captured as an example of what lengths the public are willing to go to for the life of a child or indeed as action against the sickness of the world. This will serve as a demonstration of the power and goodness of the majority of the world and the positive effect they can have in the face of adversity. I am overwhelmed by the tremendous level of goodwill I have witnessed which has actually reinforced my belief in the good of mankind.

I can understand why eurovision didn't feature it but if there had been time (and they had bothered to reply) I'd have said
1)this child has only recently been taken - I don't believe the suggestion that she got out of bed, opened a door, wandered off by herself and no-one spotted that or heard her.
2)finding this one child could prevent others being taken or even lead to others being found
3) as someone has already said it would give hope to the families of other missing children
4) it might have stopped some people in England seeing eurovision as an irrelevent joke, at least for one year

One thing that has occurred to me when reading (some of) this thread is that this little girl could be in Northern Europe by now. I know this is now getting a lot of press in Spain and Portugal, but what about the rest of Europe (Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands etc)? Has the media picked up the story there?

Good observations. Really disapointed they chose to do nothing. Still

Back to how we can help! What shall we try next?

send the new poster + reward info to all your friends & ask them to help publicise the search by doing the same...Claire Swires could tell you about the power of the internet...

Bump

Scaryhairy, I have sent emails with photos to some friends I have in the Netherlands and they are going to pass it on.
Due to another forum I use "know" lots of people all over Europe and so hopefully they will all pass it along as much as they can.

I have been emailed the poster and will distribute it here in France - will send to Paris this afternoon.

Madeleine has been in the French papers.

What are we doing next im still wading through the coach companies that go to spain as soon as ive done that im up for anything else.
Very angry at bbc in general really dont think they have been much help at all,where as sky have been fantastic imho

Someone on sky news said she may have been taken into North Africa maybe if we should be getting posters up there too?

GGG thats wonderful. You must be finding this hard. I hope ou and your family are doing ok. xx

Just a thought but how about airlines, can we contact them and see if they would display posters? How would we go about doing that?

I know the media is really well covered but I emailed the poster to the regionals, TV/Radio shows and some other news/current affairs magazine as well as the nationals in France and Spain on Saturday. I might as well carry on with all the other countries in my database. I know it probably has been covered, but no harm in sending it again eh?

no harm at all two falls
ggg wonderful that she is in the french newspapers too
I agree with Marne we should do north Africa now.What does everyone else think?

worldwide - I say, her right eye is very distinctive.

and when they find madeleine, for all the bleaters out there, then we start the search again for another missing child.

as for Ben Needham - if he's still alive he'd be old enough to get on the internet himself don't you think?

We are mothers and alone we are powerful, together we are unstoppable.
We can make a difference, we have the would wide web at our finger tips, we have mumsnetters all over the world, and they must know even more people in places that we may not.

If we work together and all do something even if it is send one Email on it will help.
If (god forbid) it were one of my children that had been stolen I would want every person that could help to do so in whatever way they could.
Yes it may not work, we may not find her or worse, but then again IT JUST MIGHT WORK and that little girl can go home to her mommy and daddy and family.

If we can help we should.
Tell me what we need to do and by god will go out of my way to do it.

I have put the pic and the link to the official website on my own website which is visited by people worldwide.It is the first thing anyone visiting will see at the top of every sub forum they visit too.I have also requested within the link that anyone who visits passes it on to everyone they know.

In defence of the bbc and Eurovision, I?m afraid to say that I can see their point.

Firstly with regard to Eurovision, it?s an international event, and one missing child among the hundreds of thousands that may be missing is not a special case. Of course it is to the parents, and to those that have been touched by this event in particular, but if you highlight the plight of one missing child, then the question could be raised as to why all the rest couldn?t be highlighted.

With regards to the bbc, I?m not really sure what people are expectin them to do? This story has been covered on the news for the past 10 days since Madeleine went missing, I?m not really sure what else people are expecting. The bbc is a public broadcaster, and asking them to make specific appeals would set a huge precedent. If they do more than just cover this story on the news, then where do you draw the line? Should they make a specific appeal for everyone that goes missing? Every teen, every adult, every small child? And if this case is special, then how do you tell the families of the other missing persons who would want their cases highlighted that their case doesn?t warrant an appeal? I think sky news has been good in that it has published the poster, but I also think sky news has been guilty of hugely sensationalising this case, with repeated interviews of the family in which they ask the most horrendous questions, and wide speculation about where she might have been taken, even though they don?t actually have a clue.

Tbh, I think rather than criticising those that aren?t prepared to help, it?s better to be grateful to the ones that are. Unfortunately not everyone will feel as passionately about this, in the same way as not everyone feels the same about all causes iyswim.

As for worldwide, I think I said way down this thread that this should be worldwide, although I do think that there are certain parts which will be harder than others ie eastern Europe and north Africa where trafficking and corruption is rife, doesn?t mean it shouldn?t be done though.

Also, is it worth contacting the missing children?s charities, to see if they would be prepared to update their logos or websites or whatever to put madeleine?s picture on there to essentially show her as the latest example in the huge amounts of missing children out there?