Boon Rawd Trading Co., Ltd. and the Mirror Foundation have launched a “Return heart to home” campaign to turn water bottle labels into missing person posters for missing children.

One of the labels with an image of a missing child, edited to represent how she would look today, along with contact details for anyone who has information (Source: Voice TV)

Boon Rawd Trading, the manufacturer of Singha Water, in collaboration with the Mirror Foundation, will print the picture and information of five missing children on over 20 million water bottle labels, to raise awareness about missing children, especially those who have been missing for a long time.

According to the Mirror Foundation, 418 children younger than 18 years went missing in 2016, 403 in 2017, 309 in 2018, and 153 in the first half of 2019. 90% of these children were successfully found.

Eaklak Loomchomkae, President of the Mirror Foundation, said that people often pay attention only to children who have just gone missing, but children who have been missing for a long time are often forgotten and don’t get any media space. A campaign is therefore needed to publicize these cases. Phurit Bhirombhakdi, Boon Rawd Trading’s CEO, said that using Singha water labels is another form of communication that can reach a wide audience, which will help with the search for these missing children.

Eaklak also said that the five children whose pictures will be printed on water bottle labels are children whose cases have been covered by the media, but it has not been enough to enable them to be found. They were also younger than 12 years old at the time they went missing, an age at which Eaklak said children are vulnerable to abduction, getting lost, or accidents. He also said that they are often abducted while they are alone in a familiar place, such as in front of their homes or at a playground, which is why parents are not often watching them closely enough. This campaign is therefore a good opportunity to publicize these old missing person cases, and to raise awareness for parents to be careful in taking care of their children.

The Mirror Foundation stressed that the public is the most important mechanism for finding missing children, more than the media, parents, or the police. Eaklak said that many cases have been successful because members of the public notice things that are out of place, see children begging or selling things on the street and wonder if these children have a home. Solving the issue of child abduction requires the joint effort of everyone, he said.