Telenor in Red Cross Partnership

Press release
Fornebu
3 minute read
Telenor has entered into a partnership with the Red Cross with the aim of enhancing the organisation's capacity for carrying out humanitarian work. The partnership will run until 2009, and encompasses the Red Cross Telephone for Children and Youth.

Working with children and youth

One of the most important responsibilities of our society is to secure a safe environment for children and youth. The Red Cross is making a comprehensive effort to achieve this goal, and as part of this initiative the Red Cross Telephone for Children and Youth has been introduced. Through this programme the Red Cross aims to provide support to children and youth, and every year 500 volunteers answer around 120,000 calls from young people all over Norway. The telephone is intended as a supplement to established support functions, and is a low-threshold offer that enables children and youth an opportunity to talk to an adult about difficult and tabooed issues, with full discretion. Through the website "Kors på halsen" (Cross My Heart) the Red Cross expands its offer by opening a new channel for those who prefer to communicate via the Internet.

The Red Cross Telephone for Children and Youth compiles important information about how children and youth experience their everyday existence. Feedback collected through this programme can be translated into meaningful initiatives in local communities, and may also have a positive preventive effect.

International players

Red CrossTelenor's partnership with the Red Cross also involves opportunities for mutual knowledge-sharing. As an international player with high professional expertise, the Red Cross possesses much valuable information about humanitarian and social conditions in countries where Telenor operates. Such knowledge about the markets in which Telenor does business is key to meet the obligations relating to human rights and the environment as set down in the UN Global Compact (For more information about the Global Compact please refer to Telenor in Society).