(ANS – Mumbai) – The network “Homelink/Missing Child Search Network” (HLK/MCS),  promoted by Salesians in India, has gained a Certificate of Appreciation 2013 in the Social Innovation Award presented by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM). The award was conferred on 13 February at Mumbai at the NASSCOM Forum on Indian Leadership, and was received by Fr Joe Prabhu, sdb, National Director of the HLK/MCS Network.

The HLK/MCS Network is one of the programs organised and promoted by the Indian  “Don Bosco Young at Risk” (YaR) Forum, an organisation committed to serving young people at risk in South Asia and influencing State, National and International policies in that regard.

NASSCOM is the first Indian organisation to channel and direct public policy for the Indian software industry and decided to award the HLK network for its level of innovation and use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) for social development in the country.

The HLK software is proprietary Internet-based software, conceived and developed by the YaR Forum to gather information on children at risk throughout India so as to help them then bring them into safer circumstances.

The certificate given to Fr Joe Prabhu at the “Grand Hyatt”, Santa Cruz, Mumbai, indicates that the award is given to the YaR Forum “in the category of innovative ICT by a not-for-profit organisation... for the development of the Homelink Network System, an online system for tracing under-age children with a view to monitoring, seeking and rehabilitating children who have been abandoned or who are on the street”.

On receving this prestigious recognition, Fr Prabhu said: “We are very happy that, after a rigorous selection process, the Jury has chosen Homelink as an innovative high impact initiative, with transforming potential”.

The HLK/MCS Network has been underway for a decade. Over this time it has undergone constant updating and improvement. Recalling all the hard work up until now, Fr Prabhu added: “this success is the right moment to recall all the years of service by HLK/MCS Network partners for young people at risk and an occasion to rejoice at the recognition given. It is also an invitation to network partners to continue their involvement and offer our best for the least in society, especially young people at risk.

The YaR Forum is in 73 centres in 19 States and Territories in the Indian Union and is at work on a daily basis to find and rescue children experiencing any kind of social risk: street children, orphans, child labourers, children in prison, the sick… On average, each year, YaR deals with around 200,000 youngsters at risk, through its 300 partners throughout India.

Published 19/02/2013