Nabuur.com

December 16th, 2008 in Uncategorized, by Head Honcho

http://www.nabuur.com/

Siegfried Woldhek, the “Dreamcatcher”, is the founder and director or NABUUR. He left the NGO community and started conceptualizing the site on 2001.

The reason for such is that when working for his previous company, he noticed that people were offering their time, equipment, ideas instead of funds or money which was usually turned down because of lack of time on the organization’s part who themselves have much work to. This was the case on most of the organizations in areas of conservation, aid, development, etc and is the basic reason for starting Nabuur.

These volunteers on Nabuur are those individuals who give their time, effort and talent to a need or cause without profiting monetarily which Siegfried Woldhek observed as needing a platform for catering these people. Thus, the venue for online volunteering is created – Nabuur.

NABUUR is an old Dutch word for “neighbor” and Nabuur.com is your global neighbor network. Through the internet, it is already possible to connect to local communities. This platform is where Villages (Local Communities) get effective and trusted assistance from online volunteers (Neighbors).

Here are some guidelines of Nabuur taken from the site:

1. The interests of Villages are always leading
2. Success is counted in concrete local steps forward: one by one
3. NABUUR.com is non-political, non-religious, non-ideological and non-commercial
4. All NABUUR.com’s services for individual Neighbors, are free of charge
5. All who participate are volunteers, and have the best interest of the Village in mind
6. Participants owe each other respect, trust and transparency
7. Everybody is a Neighbor and can contribute in an important way
8. Expected contributions are primarily commitment, time & assistance, not money
9. All contributions made on the site are freely available to everybody
10. Staff and infrastructure only facilitate, but Neighbors make it work
11. Nobody can guarantee results, but all participants will do their utmost

Some of the latest news on the site is very much inspiring knowing that people can help through the internet. These are some latest news:

• Students at Krishna Primary School receive wool hats crafted in Yoshinkhel
• Calendar sales raise funds to build a new school
• A new school for the children of Matopeni

Crowdsourcing should not only benefit the people behind each computer screen and accessing social networks but should also be a way for the less fortunate communities in the world to connect with people who want to be involved in something positive .