Everyone at BitCo was delighted to see Annelie Keyter, HOD of the crisis line, when she dropped by for a quick visit at BitCo's Olivedale Office. Little did they know they would be receiving their favourite gift of the Festive Season.

In August 2011 BitCo donated an entire call centre solution with 24/7 support to Childline Gauteng. This gesture, which was made with an earnest wish to assist the non-profit organisation, has already played a pivotal role in saving the life of a distressed teenage girl.

On the 4^th of November BitCo received an email from Annelie Keyter, head of the crisis line at Childline Gauteng. Annelie could not have been more eloquent, entitling the message, “A sad story with a happy ending.” The message informed BitCo that a young teenage girl phoned the crisis line and told the counsellor that she had bought a gun with the intention of committing suicide.

The counsellor stayed on the line with the distressed girl while another counsellor phoned FCS (Family violence, Child abuse and Sexual assault) unit in Thembisa. The constable on duty who took the call was then able to immediately send a fellow constable to attend to the matter while staying on the line. Without wasting a second, the FCS unit successfully made it to the house to intervene before any harm came to the girl and her brother. The girl will now receive counselling from the Childline Thembisa office.

Had this call come in two months earlier, no one would have been able to predict the outcome. BitCo’s Sales Director, Michael Colin, heard of Childline Gauteng’s requirement for a new PBX solution in July this year. He met with Annelie Keyter, the HOD of Childline Gauteng’s Crisis Line to conduct a needs analysis. When he learned how out-dated the non-profit organisation’s system was, he immediately knew that BitCo could help.

Upon further investigation, Michael learned that Childline Gauteng’s PBX lacked basic functionality such as conference calling. Annelie had specified that the crisis line team often need to be able to contact the police and a child at the same time.  The crisis line receives sixty to ninety thousand calls per month across all the provinces.  Every call received must be treated as though coming from a person in distress. No one call is more important than another. It is therefore vital that uptime is maximised and dropped calls eliminated.

Michael and Garth van Sittert, BitCo’s Managing Director, reviewed Childline Gauteng’s needs. With complete confidence in their product and wishing to assist Childline’s mandate to protect South Africa’s children, Garth and Mike met with Childline Gauteng’s Director, Lynne Cawood, to announce that the BitCo PBX, full Communigate system and all the monitoring tools would be free of charge. Garth generously went one step further and added a Gold SLA support contract to the donation.

Only ten days after the installation was complete, BitCo received an email from Lynne Cawood stating that their dropped calls had been slashed in half and over twenty thousand calls had already been taken, an increase of approximately 30% The intended results of the donation are already exceeding all expectations. What BitCo had not anticipated is that the Communigate system would become a significant tool in actively saving lives, as opposed to just being a cost effective telephony solution. “We are proud to be part of the [Childline Gauteng] Family. It is humbling to know what our system is aiding Childline Gauteng achieve its stated goal,” concludes Colin.

If we continue to compare our digital network to that of a road network, we can safely say that by establishing these PoP’s, we’ve brought the on-ramp closer. We are no longer relying on the beaten tracks of the scenic route but bringing you onto our exclusive six lane high-speed autobahn.

We have increased redundancy by increasing our infrastructure and mapping our national footprint. Redundancy refers to a massive back-up of hardware and fail-over power.  Mirrored storage of information on duplicate equipment means that we offer high availability. Should one PoP go down we will seamlessly connect to the next PoP, guaranteeing operational up-time.

The closer, more reliable connection ensures that your data travels via the fastest and most direct route to its destination.

As South Africans were celebrating the birthday of Human Rights icon and former president, Nelson Mandela, the world was  implored to give 67 minutes of their time to a worthy cause in honour of the 67 years he dedicated to fight against human rights abuses.

It was auspicious that on this day, Michael Colin and Garth van Sittert the directors of BitCo became aware of Childline Gauteng’s dire need for a call centre make-over.  They decided to contribute many “minutes” to Children’s Rights.

Childline was established in 1986 in Kwa-Zulu Natal as a result of rising levels of child sexual abuse. Since inception, other provincial offices have opened with the National Office opening in 2003.

 Today Childline actively fights against all forms of child abuse and fights for Children’s Rights – lobbying Parliament, developing social services as well as offering trauma counselling to abused children and their families.  z Most importantly they offer a 24 hour free crisis line.   

The crisis line deals with hundreds of queries from children and adults. The line, which provides an invaluable service, receives calls relating to a wide variety of issues and problems.  These include bullying, harassment, abuse, neglect, teenage pregnancy, divorce, sibling issues, depression and attempted suicide. The Childline toll free number receives approximately 60000 to 90000 calls per month across all the provinces.

Annelie Keyter, head of the crisis line of Childline Gauteng, was actively investigating the market for an alternative call centre solution as they had an out-dated system which was unreliable. Michael Colin of BitCo learnt of their requirements and set up a meeting to conduct a site survey.

Upon investigation it was evident that not only was the system old, but was severely limiting Childline’s mission. When asked what functionality Childline would like to have, the simple answer was, “I would like conference calling as I often need to speak to a child and the police at the same time.” This was a shocking revelation for Colin. “We also found that BitCo would be able to save Childline a significant amount of money if we moved them over to our Communigate PBX and supplied them with a VoIP solution,” reports Colin.

The BitCo Communigate PBX system offers Childline Gauteng unrivalled system functionality.  For example, conference calling will enable the organisation to speak to children, police and even a social worker simultaneously. Call recording can aid in court cases and least cost routing (LCR) will dramatically reduce their telephone bill.

Taking into consideration that Childline Gauteng relies on donations in order to operate, BitCo directors Garth van Sittert and Michael Colin met with Lyne Cawood & Annelie Keyter to announce that BitCo would provide a complete call centre solution to Childline Gauteng, free of charge.

BitCo Managing Director, Garth van Sittert concluded, “It was a pleasure and there was never any question about it.  When we see how Childline gives children a voice, it is only fitting that BitCo becomes a part of that”.

 “The famous South African band the Skwatta Kamp recorded the song "Kings and Kweens" together with Childline Gauteng. This great song forms part of the Tomorrow Campaign focusing on vulnerable boys, who are often neglected in campaigns.”  Childline Gauteng