An online user generated volunteer/activist database and community using sms.
The website is divided into two major parts. One that caters to activists and volunteers who want to get involved in projects, and one that caters to organizations looking for the volunteers. One of the elements is an sms-service that allows an activist to register by sending a text message. In this case the profile would only consist of a name, a location and a telephone number. Through more textmessages the system could ask for other factors like age, education and areas of preference (environment, womens rights etc).
The result is a database where the organisations can search for possible volunteers with a specific background. In countries with better internet access the aktivist can of course provide more detailed information in their profiles. In this case the website will also act as a community with user generated material concerning activism. Other possible solutions is to use the community/website to promote scholarships, exchanges or employment opportunities. Through the community different groups could of course also get in touch with each other to arrange collaborations of their own.
The sms-services could also be used to distribute news of information to the registered users.
The purpose is to solve or bypass the following problems:
- Lack of involvement by arab youth.
- Difficulty in finding volunteers in the region.
- Bad internet connection.
- Lack of contact between activist groups in the region.
- Lack of human resources and experience in the region.
...create a space where volunteers can reach local, regional and international NGO:s (and vice versa of course).
Realization draft:
- Build the website.
- Launch sms-services.
- Create the database of volunteers (using internet and sms).
- Create the database of organisations.
- Engage ambassadors.
- Start working.
- Continous monitoring and evaluation.
Hi, this is great! I like your idea a lot. I have one question, regarding the security aspect: how would you protect the registred participants from being tracked down by "other" authorities than organizations looking for volounteers? And how transparent would this process be - could anyone log in to check which organizations that are looking for people? Who will store the data about each activist, and who can axess that information?
ReplyDelete:) Ul
Dear uL, of course all the points you mentioned are taken into concideration, the idea is not whatsoever finalized, we are in the process of discussing every aspect of the project, but I would say that authorities would get any information they need regardless our security systems, but of course the members privacy and confidality will be kept.
ReplyDeleteThe idea is the two ways round, volunteers who would like to volunteer can reach us through email or sms (mainly sms as we are talking MENA countries) and according to their profiles we recommend them to organizations that need volunteers, also organizations would be able to join the community of Na7nou and choose volunteers who are willing to work in their field, let´s discuss it more when we meet :)
This is a nice idea, but it is very close to http://www.idealist.org/ check it out.
ReplyDeleteGuy try using http://www.mindmeister.com/ for breainstorming. It really helps.
Wish you the best luck.