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Team effort to protect kids from harmful mobile content

13 Sep 2006

MaAfrika Tikkun, an organisation striving for the upliftment of all disadvantaged people, particularly children, has partnered with smsweb in an effort to limit access of adult content by schoolchildren through a service that will block mobile phones from accessing this content. smsweb is a South African company which aims to assist in the upliftment of primary and secondary education in the country.

"Our partnership with MaAfrika Tikkun demonstrated our commitment to protecting and supporting the upliftment of children in South Africa" says Salah ElBaba, MD at smsweb.

"Through this partnership MaAfrika Tikkun's profile in schools and among parents will be significantly enhanced. Likewise, smsweb will be better positioned to highlight the society-wide benefits of protecting our nation's children from receiving adult content," says Barbara Miller, executive director of MaAfrika Tikkun in Cape Town.

"The funds generated from this initiative will aid MaAfrika Tikkun in growing its programmes on a national level," adds Miller.

msweb's PornBlocker service, a service born out of the company's concern with the responsible use of media on mobile phones, allows parents to protect their children against cell phone pornography. To activate the service, parents send an SMS with the word BLOCK, together with their children's cellphone details to 41333, and the company blacklists the number so that they are unable to view inappropriate material.

The cost of each SMS is R25.00, which provides one year's anti-porn protection. In line with smsweb's general business ethos of giving back to education, R5 from every sms received will be donated to the Ma'Afrika Tikkun Children's Fund.

In response to requests from schools and parents, smsweb has also rolled out this service in 125 schools in the Western Cape, with an intention of reaching up to 100 000 children by April 2007.

"Currently we are able to block pornography from 75% of the adult content providers in South Africa and are continuously growing this figure. In the event we become aware of any new adult content providers, we will contact them and integrate them into the service," concludes ElBaba.