We have already talked about the Roma Cares program, set up by AS Roma during the first lockdown back in March. It consisted of using their staff to deliver meals at home to senior citizens and fans facing hard times.
What is the Roma Cares programme?
Roma Cares is the social inclusion plan set up by the A.S. Roma football team, which aims to integrate the team and its supporters in their daily life.
It really takes after the Barcelona football club’s motto – Mes que un club. It states that a club is much more than just a club. A. S. Roma serves as a guiding light for many of its fans that venerate it in and out of the field.
As mentioned before, Roma Cares is a plan of action tied to the social inclusion theme. While there are differences among them, they aim to improve the lives of the fans in the social context, but also to offer a positive contribution to society in general.
One such contribution is “Missing Kids”, an initiative that has been particularly effective in locating missing kids.
How does “Missing Kids” work?
Missing Kids is a component of the A. S. Roma’s Roma Cares project and it aims to help families locate missing children.
As we all now, during transfer market season, all fans are eagerly waiting to find out which stars are being bought by their team. All the attention, both by the media as well as the fans, is focused on the news; it is viral as we say in these times of the social networks.
Hence, Missing Kids is simple yet highly effective operation:
Every announcement of the team’s new acquisition is accompanied by the photo and information of a missing child so as to give it high visibility and help in the location of that child.
The level of sharing of the missing kids’ information, tied to the team new acquisitions news, is so very high that it instantly goes viral.
What are the results of the Roma Cares initiative?
Seven missing children have been located. We can say that is very important news. Seven broken families have found joy in the embrace of their children.
The positive results have moved the ECA (European Club Association) to join forces with Roma to launch a similar initiative. On the occasion of the International Missing Children’s Day (May 25th) more than 200 football clubs from 61 countries and 6 continents committed to support this initiative.
Clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool and many others have also embraced it bringing to an audience of more than 100 million people around the world.
Paul Rogers, A. S. Roma’s digital manager and creative mind behind this wonderful project spoke about with the Corriere della Sera (Italian daily newspaper):
“We have utilized and taken advantage of the viral distribution potential of the transfer market news to shine a spotlight on the issue of missing children.
Paul Rogers
Football has an enormous following on social media and the information on these kids is put in front of the eyes of millions of people who are reading about the team’s acquisitions. Instead of using these ads to promote our team, we use the space to help locate missing children”.
Unbeknownst to him, the news about the arrival of English centre-back footballer Chris Smalling to Roma contributed to the location and subsequent finding of two missing children.
He was so pleased upon hearing this news that he decided to become a spokesperson for the “Missing Kids” campaign. This joy is equal to winning a derby, or almost so…
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