Volunteering in the age of Internet

Chennai

How has social media helped?
Social media was use well by people for #ChennaiRains. We sourced volunteers using Facebook, Twitter and formed a group on Whatsapp that helped us get updates from different volunteers across the city. We were able to route all the queries on the Whatsapp channel to find out a solution.

How did you utilise to carry out the rescue work?
We had received important leads online. For example, Iyyappanthangal had water till our hips and we had to take a bullock cart in order to reach people who didn’t want to evacuate. They were in need of mosquito coils, milk packets and things that they can stock up. At every instance we were getting info about the food availability, so the volunteers would just take the van there source the relief materials to the right people.

How can it be used further to help Chennai?
It can be strongly used for verifications. Now we are getting a lot of fake calls, old requirements re-posted - it helps us to check with volunteers of that area through social media if the concern was addressed. We are also able to figure out through updates on #ChennaiRains #chennaiFloods #ChennaiRainsHelp which all area has got the aid.

We are also learning about specific requirements of people.