How AS Roma is Helping Find Missing Children
Image courtesy of AS Roma
By JEHAN BOER ‘21
In 1988, 15 year old Lee Boxwell, a native of Sutton, England, went missing. Searches, year-long graveyard digs, and four crime watch appeals later, officials were unsuccessful in finding the missing boy. Sadly, the Boxwell family accepted the fact that their son may have passed away. But now, 31 years later, Peter Boxwell, Lee’s father, is receiving dozens of calls from residents of Rome, Italy, asking what they can do to help find Lee. This unexpected source of assistance comes from soccer club AS Roma’s new strategy of aiding the search of missing children around the world using social media.
AS Roma (@ASRomaEN), already well respected in the social media community for their hilarious and classy admin, decided to take advantage of their ability to reach 535,000 Twitter followers to do good. Roma’s head of strategy, Paul Rogers, desired to use the club’s fame to do something “more meaningful”. Soul Asylum’s 1990 music video Runaway Train, which featured missing children in order to spread awareness, inspired Rogers to do something similar. He and Roma teamed up with the US-Based charity National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children to figure out a way to help spread awareness of missing children, a problem that doesn’t necessarily get as much recognition as needed. Since in the United Kingdom alone, 140,000 children go missing every year, Roger came up with a simple strategy: Roma’s Twitter page now pairs the club’s recruitment announcements, posts that are extremely popular, side by side with posters about missing kids. By posting them side by side, the popularity of recruiting announcements being viewed by their millions of followers means increasing awareness about missing children.
Roma’s missing children posts take full advantage of two factors solely unique to soccer. Most announcements of a new signing for any club instantly go viral, offering the perfect opportunity to spread a message. Also, intrigue in soccer especially in Europe transcends national borders, translating to awareness of missing children in many countries, not just Italy. For example, when Roma signed Davide Zappacosta from London club Chelsea, they included mention of a missing girl from London in their announcement video. Soon after, the girl was found.
So far, AS Roma has publicized 109 lost children cases, and increased awareness has assisted in finding 5 missing children around the world, from England to Kenya. Rogers is happy that the club is doing it’s part to bring awareness to such an important issue. When a Kenyan girl was found after being recognized on Roma’s twitter page, Roger said that knowing they helped, the club felt a moment of “euphoria” that was greater even than the joy of winning a match.
AS Roma and their new strategy offers a good example of using fame for the greater good. By helping with such an important issue, Roma hopes to inspire other clubs to use their fame in similar ways to impact society positively.