CareMail: Reaching out from Cyberspace to help the unconnected

~pkenyon Fri, Aug 1, 1997 (08:29) seed

I have been invited by Terry Walhus to create a new topic to discuss the idea of CareMail within the Cultures conference. Here is a description of CareMail taken from its homepage located at http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/Caremail/rescue.html CareMail is a very simple, but powerful idea, that could improve the lives of many people across the world. At the moment there are millions of people lucky enough to enjoy access to the Internet and able to transmit messages across the world in a matter of seconds. But there is an even greater number of people who do not enjoy this technological privilege, and who are never likely to become part of the Internet community. For these people there are times when access to something we take for granted - e-mail - could be a matter of life and death. CareMail is a network of people around the world who have Internet access and who would be prepared to: * transmit an e-mail message on behalf of a needy person in their area * accept an e-mail for a needy person in their area and take the message to them. This would be a very worthwhile service we could offer to people less well off than ourselves. For example, imagine a mother living in Brazil without the money to make a long distance phone call. She falls ill, and needs to contact a relative in Boston. If this woman knew a local person (priest, doctor, or schoolteacher) who was a member of CareMail she could ask them to send an email to a CareMail member in Boston. The Bostonian could then take the e-mail to the woman's relative. This is simply a modern example of the type of good neighbourliness that has gone on for years. When I was a child, people with telephones would take calls for neighbours. CareMail extends this idea into Cyberspace. We are gradually forming CareMail with the intention of making the Internet available to: * the poor, * the dispossessed, * the sick, * the injured, * the lost, * people who are not able to buy a computer. Our intention is one of helping and also of bringing together people who are willing to help. In order for CareMail to work, we need to build up a network of people across the world who are prepared to participate and give a little of their time and good fortune to help someone who is less well off than they are. --------------------------------------------- CareMail is located at http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/Caremail/rescue.html I would be very interested to hear your reaction to the CareMail concept. Thanks for your help.

~terry Fri, Aug 1, 1997 (09:48) #1

This is the kind of stuff that makes me light up! What a great idea. How many folks (approximately) are taking part in this now? Do you have (or need) a central website that you use to co-ordinate this?

~pkenyon Mon, Aug 4, 1997 (08:21) #2

Thanks Terry for your encouragement on the Caremail project. I should begin by saying that the Caremail concept is the idea of Klaus Treuherz who lives in Brazil and came up with the idea in response to a challenge from his local priest who asked "What can the Internet do for poor people living in the favela?" TheCareMail website is located on my computer at http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/Caremail/rescue.html I am a university lecturer and until now my main interest in the Internet has been to support my undergraduate courses in psychology and research students using the Internet to collect data (e.g. I have one student using the net to collect data on ptsd from Vietnam veterans via online questionnaires) It's quite a contrast to come into work and read e-mail from war veterans together with offers to help with CareMail. Caremail has been running for about 3 weeks and we have 30+ members at present. At the moment the main task is to get more people involved and interested so that the word is spread about CareMail. I think there will shortly come a time when I will need help with a website to host CareMail. In addition I am very conscious of the need to create links to a database to store membership details in such a way that the user can contact members in particular countries, perhaps via a clickable map interface. Other people have raised issues like the privacy of members addresses and filtering out trivial requests for forwarding e-mail from real emergency use. Maybe there needs to be password protection on the membership list to restrict access to only those who have joined CareMail. I suspect that you have experience of setting up commercial websites and I would be very interested in your views on the way forward for CareMail

~terry Mon, Aug 4, 1997 (10:52) #3

We probably need to put something on the Spring's main page about this. Any suggestiosn as to a short 3 line intro?

~pkenyon Mon, Aug 11, 1997 (08:08) #4

Terry, Thanks for your offer to publicise CareMail. How about something like this? CareMail (http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/Caremail/rescue.html) is a network of people around the world who have Internet access and who would be prepared to: * transmit an emergency e-mail message on behalf of a needy person in their area * accept an emergency e-mail for a needy person in their area and take the message to them. This would be a very worthwhile service we could offer to people less well off than ourselves. Let me know if you want this shortened or expressed in some other form of words. Thanks again

~terry Mon, Aug 11, 1997 (09:01) #5

Do you have a graphic I could use as well?

~pkenyon Tue, Aug 19, 1997 (07:02) #6

There are a couple of graphics at the top of the CareMail page that could be used. But I don't really think they capture the essence of the site on their own. Would anybody be prepared to help us out on this one? Graphics is one of my real weak spots!

~Jomik Mon, Sep 1, 1997 (07:05) #7

Hi, Great idea, I was just searching what I could do for Third World people with the technical studies I do. That's maybe the beginning of a response. But for the moment, seems to me that I won't be very useful to your project, here in Switzerland...anyway I'll register, even if I don't see what the informations about religion are doing here. Otherwise, seems that it would be great to move your records in a database so that the page with people available would be dynamically generated. It's becoming quite necessary to classify records, don't you think? I'm not a specialist at all (I'm student) but I've worked a bit on database-driven sites. Hope to be useful if you want to do something this way. Bye, Mika

~Jomik Mon, Sep 1, 1997 (07:14) #8

Oh, sorry, I've just registered and I've seen that's already done. I didn't mean to me offending.

~pkenyon Tue, Sep 2, 1997 (09:00) #9

Mika Thanks for your encouragement for the CareMail concept. You are quite right the site could really do with the addition of a database so that people can request information about participants in a particular country. Like you I am not a specialist on this type of thing, but I guess I am going to have to find out how to implement this facility. I may call on you. You know the saying "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king". Actually I'm a lecturer but I'll let you into a secret that you will figure out sooner or later. All we guys know is where to look for information, we don't actually carry it around in our heads - it only looks that way when we teach! You mention that you were suprised by the sites religious content. Do you think this restricts it's appeal to only a certain group of people. I would be interested to hear your, and others, reactions to this. Thanks for your interest

~sociolingo Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (09:32) #10

Any update on this?