Editor's note: It is not just authorities that are helping missing children and their loved ones. China Daily talked to 40-year-old volunteer Guo Yahong and Beijing lawyer Zhang Zhiwei about the part they play in helping families recover and reconnect with lost children.

When it comes to identifying missing children, I have a magic weapon: Accents.

It's been really effective. In fact, in the three years since I gave up my shop to work full time with Baobei Huijia, a volunteer website dedicated to finding lost young people, I've helped reunite more than 60 children with their parents.

I'm from Songyuan in Jilin province, which is where the website is based. I became involved shortly after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. I wanted to make a contribution, to help poor families after I read their stories on the Internet.

Now I liaise with the police, helping out whenever they find a child who is lost or they suspect has been abducted.

Identifying a child's accent as he or she speaks Mandarin points us in the right direction, so I chat with them and listen for little signs, even though I might not be able to speak their dialect. It can be very effective.

If a boy uses words commonly heard in Sichuan, for example, I'll share his information with volunteers in that province, which can narrow the search.

Different areas have varying accents, even within the same province, so local volunteers can match the boy to a specific area. Accents save a lot of time.

I've gotten to know almost every accent in China, especially in the southwest, such as Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces, where many children go missing. I can't speak the dialects, but I learn from my friends and research online.

Small details matter, and it is not just accents. We were recently able to reunite a 4-year-old boy thanks to the description of the red sweater he was wearing when he disappeared.

Volunteers don't just record information, we analyze it.

Guo Yahong was talking to China Daily reporter Cao Yin.

(China Daily 01/22/2013 page5)