Neighbourhood Help | Support risk groups through online platforms
The topic of neighbourhood help has experienced an enormous boost in the last few weeks – that’s great! But even though everyday life is slowly returning to normal for many of us and contact restrictions are slowly being removed, risk groups need more support than ever. Because many of them now need to be even more careful not to get infected with the virus.
To enable you to get in touch directly with neighbours in need of support, we have compiled the most important neighbourhood help platforms for you in this article. You will also find our multilingual form for the hallway, which you can use to offer your help directly to your (non-German-speaking) neighbourhood. You can also find a German form here.
Now, before you start right away, please remember:
Only get involved in your neighbourhood when you are healthy! Avoid too many social contacts (keyword #socialdistancing or #physicaldistancing) and limit your help to only a few people. Otherwise you will go from being a friendly helper to a virus-slinging virus-spinner! “Nicht einfach draufloshelfen” (which means “Don’t just start helping”) is also advised in this ZEIT magazine article.
FORM FOR THE HALLWAY
The many forms that you can hang up in the hallway or in your neighbourhood are still helpful for neighbourhood help. Since most of them are only available in German, we have created a form that also addresses our English, Turkish and Arabic speaking neighbours!
Einfach ausdrucken, Sprache(n) ankreuzen, die du sprichst, Kontaktinformationen eintragen und aufhängen!
NEIGHBOURHOOD HELP PLATFORMS
nebenan.de | Germany-wide neighbourhood network
Probably the best known neighbourhood network in Germany is nebenan.de, which connects around 1.4 million neighbours. There, registered people can publish their own offers of help in the direct neighbourhood or take advantage of them. According to their own statements, “only verified neighbours are given access to your neighbourhood”.
wirgegencorona.com | with free telephone service
Wir gegen Corona was developed especially for the times of corona. It serves as a mediation platform between helpers and people seeking help, e.g. to do shopping. All helpers* are verified in advance. In addition, a free telephone service is available from Monday to Friday, 9-17 hrs on 0800 08 200 20.
coronaport.net | extended neighbourhood help
Coronaport was developed by the 15-year-old Noah Adler from Berlin. It’s also a matching platform for helpers and people who need help (after Berlin now also nationwide). In order to further develop the site technically, the team is currently looking for donations and support from experts in web development, photography, legal advice, design and others.
helping-hands.io/de | including map of Germany and forms
Helping Hands provides both a map of Germany, where you can find people seeking help in your area, as well as a function where those people seeking can create their own individual requests. They also provide a form “Help for the hallway”, which can be used to offer help to neighbours in different languages
corona-help.org | with telephone hotline and app
Also the platform corona-help.org offers a telephone hotline for those seeking help and an app for those who help. Apart from the matching they put also particularly value on it the internal barriers of people in need to overcome and to show thus that there are many people, who help gladly and whose assistance can be accepted.
wirhelfen.eu | interactive map of Germany
WirHelfen is a central contact point and bundles various offers of help throughout Germany. Those who are offering help can create an offer of help in a fairly uncomplicated way and choose between “going shopping”, “childcare” and “sharing things”. An interactive map of Germany shows the offers for people seeking help, who can then contact those offering help by e-mail or telephone. You will also find a templates for tear-off notes and rules of conduct on the site.
wirwollenhelfen.com | Health professionals and other volunteers
The job matching site MEDWING uses its experience in the placement of health care professions and has launched the platform wirwollenhelfen.com Here they link medical and nursing staff with hospitals and, in addition, volunteers with fellow citizens who need support.
gegen-den-virus.de | practical help and opportunities for conversation
As subplatform of KrisenKultur.de offers gegen-den-virus.de digital notices for downloading and printing, which can attach help offering in the neighbourhood. You can do this by either offering help yourself or by posting hotline services. There people seeking help can register for practical help or simply for nice conversations.
Local Facebook-Groups & press
In addition, countless local groups and platforms are currently forming. Simply enter “Neighbourhood Help (or in German Nachbarschaftshilfe) + LOCATION” in the Facebook browser and join one of the numerous groups.
Furthermore, the local press also constantly reports on new offers and platforms.
We’ll keep you up to date
Through our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) we present many more exciting projects. Furthermore, we keep you up to date on interesting topics from the world of volunteering.
You know of a neighborhood help platform that’s missing here? Let us know and write a short mail to rebekka.hesse@vostel.de! 🙂
Keep well! Your team from vostel.de
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