Create a ‘Help Center’

Groups that seek to network organizations in remote areas.

Action Without Borders has initiated a program to begin ‘Help Centers’ in communities across the world. These centers are designed to bring together in a single location resources for those who want to help those in need, and to form a global network of these places. We may have room at Huzanity School to house one of these centers. Here is information from the website. For more information about Help Centers, see www.idealist.org/invitation.html.

What would happen if we could easily get in touch with people, organizations and businesses—down the street and around the world—that had agreed explicitly on some basic values and goals? What could we achieve with a loose and effective network—as loose and effective as the Web itself—of people and organizations that act locally, think globally and share what they can with others?

Wherever possible, Help Centers will provide a meeting place where people can come to exchange ideas, suggest and plan a project, give or take a class, get help in finding the resources they may need to help themselves and others, or simply find someone to water their plants while they are on vacation. A ‘gateway’ through which organizations of every kind can reach the community and work with it according to local needs and priorities: education, health, human rights, economic development, and more. The opportunity to share ideas, information and resources with people facing similar challenges in other centers, whether in the same city or on another continent. The intangible but crucial feeling that we are not alone—that in our neighborhood and all over the world there are others who understand and support what we are doing.

A Help Center is part of a global network with a shared vision (to help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives) It provides a gateway through which a variety of organizations that support that vision can reach and serve the community. It offers a free and neutral space where people and organizations can meet to help themselves and others. It works within some basic rules that everyone agrees on. It has regular hours of operation that people can count on. It welcomes everyone during those hours (and not only the members of a certain group).