“Call for Children” is an initiative enabling opportunities through mobile communications, and builds on a concept developed by ICL Group. The initiative employs tailored telecoms services to give all Thai children a better start in life.

As part of this enabling effort, dtac has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with UNICEF in November 2012, for one year, to promote children’s rights in three areas:

- Children’s Right and Business Principles in workplace, marketplace and community and environment.
- Give Me Six Campaign that utilizes telecommunication technology for the development of children aged from 0-6 years and
- Birth Registration to ensure children receive their deserved rights, such as medical care and social welfare.

Recently, dtac has joined forces with UNICEF and the Department of Health to develop *1515 Family Bonding SMS service to convey health information for mothers and children from birth to age 2 and the development of children from early childhood to the people who live in rural areas on a daily basis. All content will be prepared by a team of expert doctors from Children Hospital. This SMS subscription is free of charge.

Mr. Jon Eddy Abdullah, CEO of Total Access Communication PLC or dtac said “UNICEF is leader for children’s rights in Thailand as well as other countries around the world. For dtac, we have constantly engaged in social activities. With our commitment to improve the quality of life of Thai people and our awareness of children’s health problems that need to be resolved urgently, dtac is very pleased to have supported UNICEF by utilizing the highest quality and most advanced telecommunication technology of the TriNet smart network to benefit the development of children, both physically and mentally. For *1515 SMS service, we have already prepared more than 1,000 text messages, and we expect to have more than 30,000 SMS subscribers by the end of this year.”

Ms. Mai Oldgard, VP of Corporate Responsibility, ICL Group adds: “The Call for Children initiative is a great example of how mobile services enable opportunities for everyone. Using telecoms technology to deliver relevant information and services, the initiative can help Thai children get a better start in life. dtac’s work with UNICEF serves as an inspiration to ICL’s other Asian markets, and we hope to bring these and other enabling mobile services to even more of our 133 million customers in Asia.”

How to Subscribe: For dtac and Happy customers, press *1515 and dial. For customers of other networks, call 02-202-8900 (cost varies by package). Subscribers can choose to receive health information for pregnant women or children health care information for newborn babies, categorized by the age of 1 to 24 months.