AS Roma follows Mashemeji Derby in reuniting missing Kenyan child with family
It has taken just two moths for Serie A team AS Roma’s new partnership with Missing Child Kenya to bare fruits.
During the summer transfer period, Roma took a completely different approach to announcing new signings in an effort to use the club’s extensive digital media to help find missing children in Kenya.
On Monday, the club announced that a 13-year-old Kenyan boy, who featured on Twitter alongside Henrikh Mkhitaryan when the midfielder secured his loan move from Arsenal, has been found and reunited with his family.
According to the club, the 13-year-old was found on the same day that Mkhitaryan registered his first goal for Paulo Fonseca’s men against Sassuolo.
?Brilliant news!
A 13-year-old Kenyan boy featured in the #ASRoma announcement video for @HenrikhMkh has been found safe & reunited with his family.
The club partnered with the amazing @missingchild_ke in July to raise awareness about cases of children missing in Kenya? pic.twitter.com/MMQExRGj5a
— AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) September 16, 2019
“We want to use the viral nature of social media transfer announcements to help raise awareness for missing children,” Roma’s head of strategy Paul Rogers said.
“We have a massive social media following and our announcements generate incredible reach and awareness, all over the world,” he added.
This comes a few months after three missing children were found and reunited with their families within 24 hours after their information was shared before the kick off of the Mashemeji derby between AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia at the Moi International Sports Center, Kasarani in Nairobi.
Each of the players who started that match entered the pitch holding huge portraits of the missing children as a way of creating public awareness about missing children around the country.
The players’ gesture was made possible through Missing Child Kenya, a community-led portal that works with organizations and individuals in the child protection sector and the public to help share information on missing children using various media platforms and increase search efforts at no cost to the affected families.