Airline passengers targeted in latest initiative

MORE than 100,000"Find Maddie" wristbands are to be handed out,and airline passengers may be targeted worldwide, in the latest initiative to find missing Madeleine McCann, the Sunday Herald has learned.

The yellow and green bands, similar to those pioneered by the legendary cyclist Lance Armstrong to raise awareness of his cancer charity, will include a tiny photograph of the campaign's iconic image of the child's right eye and the international Crimestoppers phone number.

In a sign of the huge support being offered to the family, a family-run business which makes similar bands for schoolchildren is hoping to recruit airlines around the world to give them out to passengers.The move was revealed as Kate and Gerry McCann mark the first month since their daughter was snatched from their holiday apartment in Portugal today.

Madeleine's aunt Diane McCann, 39, said: "The wristbands which range from tiny to adult sizes and will have our Looking For Madeleine'slogan, the phone number and a wee picture of her eye. We are thinking of the best way to distribute these."

ELF Safety, based in Reigate, Surrey, run by Sarah and Grant Teasdale, hopes to distribute 100,000 bands for Madeleine after talks with its Chinese suppliers. They already supply 750,000 schoolchildren with bands containing their school phone number and name for people to contact if they are lost.

Charity wristbands have become an increasingly fashionable way to show support for organisations since Armstrong began wearing yellow bands to raise awareness of his Livestrong charity, which helps cancer sufferers and their families, after he fought back from the disease to win the Tour de France seven times.

Celebrities, footballers and politicians,including the prime minister, Tony Blair, who wore a white Make Poverty History band, have been seen wearing the symbols, which  are more about raising awareness than raising funds for particular causes.

Sarah Teasdale, 39, a mother of three young children, said: "Although it is in the early stages, we hope to speak to the airlines about giving them out, possibly in return for a small donation. We are also looking at handing them out at airports generally, banks and theme parks. It could even be given out to long-haul lorry drivers. We don't honestly know where this could stop.

"You never know when this is going to happen to you and this is raising awareness for everybody to hopefully bring Madeleine home."

The family launched the firm, which is named after their children's initials, after helping a woman find her son on a beach two years ago. It now supplies every school in the country. Teasdale added: "It took about half an hour to find her and the woman was in panic. After that my daughter said if they had a phone number on a wrist band somebody could have phoned her to say she was alright."

Diane admitted she is struggling to read all of the emails containing suggestions for initiatives to find Madeleine. She added: "It is driven by family, friends and friends of friends and people saying have you tried this or that?' We can't keep up with all of them."

Madeleine's parents spent yesterday privately with their twins Sean and Amelie as it was revealed Portuguese police have DNA evidence of a mystery person. The sample was found in Madeleine's bedroom after hundreds of DNA samples were taken from the scene.

They are now trying to identify the sample, but it is not thought to match that of the chief suspect Robert Murat.


http://www.heraldscotland.com/100-000-green-and-yellow-wristbands-in-latest-move-to-find-maddie-1.827621


Dr.McCann did mention on his blog for the day this news was released 'Great ideas are coming in', and it was a Beach day. Looking back over the news from when Madeleine was first reported missing, it is hard to now understand how anyone believed what was happening in front of their eyes, it was almost mass hypnosis on a world wide scale. Not one single word of Madeleine and the fear she may be found any day dead in a ditch. How could anyone who has lost their child be sitting and typing about the days events in such a cold calculating way?



Day 30 - 02/06/2007 - Saturday

Beach Day 30

Relatively quiet day. Did manage to repsond to some e-mails regarding campaign issues with some excellent ideas coming through. We did visit a local beach with Sean, Amelie and the rest of the family who are here and managed to get a bite to eat. Having a huge number of media reuests in but want these to be very focussed in areas that will have clear benefits in the search for Madeleine. We did do a German TV and newspaper interview which wiil be released tomorrow to incraese awareness ahead of our planned visit to Berlin later this week. Most of the Sunday newspapers will carry some of the interview as a British reporter sat in and asked a few more quetions related to the campaign strategy.



http://www.contactbands.co.uk/contact_details_for_elf_safety.html

ELF SAFETY CONTACTBANDS.