A MARTIAL arts prodigy has used his competition success to start a Facebook campaign to help parents find missing children.
Giorgio Ryan, 11, of Tyberry Road, Enfield Highway, who has won six major titles in Tae Kwon Do since September, is using his Facebook page and website to publicise the plight of missing children from across the world.
He and father Kevin, a volunteer for the find Madeleine McCann campaign, have recently bought a domain name to build a website to publicise missing children.
Mr Ryan said his son was inspired to act after watching a clip on video website Youtube about a girl who was abused by her parents, and decided to use his Facebook site to feature pictures of missing children from across the world.
Since his campaign began, he has now become ‘friends’ with affected families from all over the world, as well as private detectives and law enforcement agencies.
His father said that they hoped that the new website could be sponsored by these agencies, many of whom are based in America.
He said: “Giorgio has also started his own cause called 'teach children to not be afraid of strangers'. When he goes to competitions he always wears a find Madeleine T-shirt and hoody and people always come up to him. I have always encouraged him to talk to strangers because one day they might help him. People in my age group have been brainwashed to be afraid of strangers, but I want to teach him to interact safely with strangers and to not fear them but to know when a stranger is behaving improperly.”
“We’ve had a lot of bad feedback from parents in America whose children have been abducted and killed – you can’t really argue back with them, and I understand the criticism, but Giorgio is confident now how to react to all these situations.”
Giorgio, who is now British black belt champion in his height division, has a long list of achievements to his name, becoming the youngest boy in the country to achieve a black belt aged 8.
He became the Scottish champion in September, before winning the South East England title, becoming the Midlands champion and the Inter Club Championship, and scooping a silver in the South Midlands championship. Last weekend, for the first time in six months, he didn’t medal at the English championships.
Giorgio trains at the Enfield School of Tae Kwon Do and the Barnet School of Tae kwon do, and will go to Lea Valley Sports College in September.
For more information see www.giorgio.org.uk
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