Help with the search for Madeleine McCann

[flyingfairy]

DO YOU WANT TO HELP IN THE SEARCH FOR MADELEINE AND OTHER CHILDREN?

Our group is not a discussion group - there are lots of forum's on the internet where you can discuss the rights and wrongs of what happened on 3 May 2007. Our group is an action group, therefore if you feel the same way as we do, and would like to help in however way - large or small - please get in touch to [email protected] - (stating where you saw this message).

During our campaigning throughout mainland Europe and the rest of the World, we also highlight cases of other abducted children in countries such as
Spain, Italy, France, Turkey (to name a few). If by highlighting Madeleine's abduction, we make contact with other people whose children have been abducted, and who do not have resources available to highlight their plight, we hope to provide support and assistance.

As at Monday 23 July 2007, Madeleine has been missing from her family for over 81 days, and if we stop now, sit and do nothing then we achieve NOTHING. Your help may be just what Madeleine, and other children need right now. So if you want to do SOMETHING, then please join us and assist the search.

WHAT WOULD I HAVE TO DO?
Each person who joins up is assigned to a group either working on ideas or countries. The type of things we are doing includes direct emailing to specific businesses and industries to raise awareness and asking for help by either putting up the poster, or seeking support to our fund raising efforts.

The Madeleine McCann campaign has chosen not to specifically endorse any particular groups, however our founding member is in direct contact with the Spokesperson for the campaign.

You know, these utterly fucking ludicrous spam campaigns don't just do no good, they actually do harm. They make the not-very-bright feel so terrified of Child Snatchers on every corner that they damn near smother their own kids and barely give them a minute's peace - all quite uneccessarily. Because the number of children abducted by nefarious strangers remains absolutely tiny (most missing kids are missing as the result of custody battles) and most kids who get murdered, get murdered by their own parents.

does this count as spam yet?

i totally agree,madamez.

wouldnt it be better to put this much effort into supporting charities like the NSPCC etc?

i think the world has gone nuts.

It might also be useful to highlight and clarify the laws regarding parental supervision. ie. at what age is it legally acceptable to leave children alone.

This is a fuzzy area of law in the UK, at least.

Bubble99, thing is, though, many a parent has left a young child alone (but nearby) for brief spaces of time for good reasons, with no harm done. There is actually a law about it (you cannot leave a child unsupervised under the age of 13) but a lot of the time it isn't used because when a child is briefly left alone but comes to no harm, no one knows about it - and also, it's not always that easy to define 'unsupervised'. It is not, for instance, unreasonable to be upstairs while your DC is in the garden even if you live in a 3-story house. And if you are one adult in charge of more than one young child, there are times when you have to engage your attention fully with one of those children, thus leaving the others technically 'unsupervised' and, very occasionally, bad things happen. However, making up new laws called for by a percentage of the public having the screaming abdabs in the light of unusual unfortunate incidents is a Bad Thing. INvariably.

It is, of course, OK to leave a child in a secure garden, while inside the house for a short amount of time.

Just as it is OK to be in a garden and leave a child asleep inside a house with a locked front door.

Bubble: yup, but people also sometimes leave a child alone for a 5-minute run to the shop across the road because they've run out of nappies or something (and indeed, my parents left me, age 2, alone in the house because my mum went into labour at 3am and there was no one nearby who could come in and sit with my sleeping self - no harm done, hospital was at the end of the road...). It's a matter of risk assessment (something a lot of people are absolutely crap at). It's probably only one in a million times that something bad would happen to a sleeping child left alone for a short time, afte all.

Would anyone leave their child in a house without making sure that the child couldn't open the door and wander off? ie. locking it?

Bubble: Well it's not something I've actually done but might reckon it worth the risk with DS asleep in his cot if it was a major need for something (can't actually think of what - most major emergencies need longer than 5 mins after all) I did once contemplate it when I ran out of nappies but then remembered that I had a pack of swimming nappies so could pop him in one of them next morning and run to shop then... :-) I'm just noting that statistically, laving a sleeping kid to go a short distance for a short space of time is a low-risk thing to do.

A sleeping-in-a-cot, non-walking, baby? Left alone? That sounds do-able in an emergency.

A walking toddler or young child? No.

Would it have been acceptable if the McCanns had paid the tenner for a babysitter and she had done a 'risk assessment' and decided it was okay to leave the toddlers in an unlocked apartment by a main road, while she went and sat with friends in a a bar in a compound through a security gate - methinks if she had and the kid had wandered out looking for her after 50 mins (not 30 as the McCann mythology has now been accepted) she would be in jail by now - and the McCanns would be leading the condemnation.
Their actions were in no way comaparable to leaving a child infdoors while you sit in the garden of the child's own home.
The McCanns keep peddling the line that she was snatched in her sleep - how the hell do they know she wasn't crying for 45 mins before coming out to look for them? A far more likely scenarion since neither of the twins were taken.
I feel desperately sorry for Madeleine, but her paretns should shut up and look after their remaining children.

kookaburra

don't worry guys, im sure some other personal tradegy will be along in the news soon enough for you all to get your judgemental claws into. Why the hell is this still being dissected?

If people feel they are "helping" by setting up campaign groups then fine, the intentions are good. Other than that, this needs to be left alone now. Bitching and superiority is inappropriate and the sort of thing i expect from ignorant people with nothing better to do.

The point is that there are countless personal tragedies every day in the news and countless others that don't make the news many more heartbreaking than this one which is hogging the limelight.

yeah right, im sure they are lapping up all the attention. They must feel like their celebrity ship has come in.

'I feel desperately sorry for Madeleine, but her paretns should shut up and look after their remaining children'

are you for real?

..and we re back to the same arguement all the Madeleine McCann threads get to!

FFS do what StG said in the first place.

BTW Tazmosis your nan who said "if you've nothing nice to say, say nothing at all." Was most certainly not refferring to mumsnet.

We are all nasty bitches.

Bubble - I left DS1 in the house for 10 mins (sleeping at night) whilst DH drove me to the hospital ( he thought I was having a palacental abruption). The midwife reported me to SS, who came (against the advice of the comm. midwife, GP and HV) and (bless them) were very sympatheitc. Looking back, we could have crashed the car and died, and DS1 would have been abandoned in the house

Like SS said, no-one thinks striaght in an emergency, no-one is a perfect parent. But it's left me paranoid about every parenting decision I make.

well, according to the Portuguese media,

friends of the mccanns were involved

surprise surprise.

Message withdrawn

I just LURVE the look on people's faces when I admit we've had a visit from the infamous SS