“Aiuto Dal Cielo?” è la prima banca del tempo al mondo che sia stata concepita come banca del tempo internazionale. Nata il 12 marzo 2009 come associazione di promozione sociale con l’obiettivo di aiutare le persone ad aiutarsi, è rimasta operativa fino al 2013 per poi farsi un lungo pisolino in attesa di ritornare a nuova vita.
La particolarità di questa associazione consiste nell’utilizzare le “ore dell’altruismo” come unità di misura del proprio impegno a migliorare il mondo.
Al contrario del denaro, queste ore vengono create da zero ogni qualvolta ci si attiva.
Sono considerate ore dell’altruismo le ore dedicate a:
- aiuto di comunità colpite da un disastro naturale,
- salvaguardia degli habitat naturali e delle specie animali e vegetali che lo abitano,
- insegnamento di biologia, geologia, astronomia, paleontologia, fisica e matematica.
La quantità di ore impiegate allo scopo vengono poi riconosciute sul conto del volontario che risulterà il “creatore” di queste ore dell’altruismo. Queste “ore” vengono poi utilizzate dalla nostra associazione come unità di misura per gli aiuti tra i soci, come nel mondo reale si fa con il denaro. La quantità di ore dell’altruismo che permette questi scambi è stata creata per lo più all’Aquila nel post-terremoto ed a Trieste per attività di salvaguardia dell’habitat naturale. Ovvio che queste ore non sono paragonabili al denaro. Non equivalgono ad alcun grammo di oro nè vengono riconosciute da banche, stati o aziende in alcuna parte del mondo. Le nostre ore dell’altruismo non hanno alcun valore se non il valore che siamo noi a dare all’altruismo.
Se qualcuno volesse approfondire il discorso relativo alla nostra banca del tempo internazionale qui sotto troverà un’ampia descrizione in inglese che prima o poi il sottoscritto Massimiliano Apostoli tradurrà:
“Aiuto Dal Cielo?” with the question mark means “Help From The Sky?”.
This is a question to people who wait that other people solve their problems instead of being themselves the help they need.
“Aiuto Dal Cielo?” is an association based on the World Wide Web, born from the previous so named “Aiuto Dal Cielo?”the first international timebank set up in Italy in 2009- March 12, which created the circuit of the hours of altruism, a network where altruistic people are seen as the real richness of the whole world society.
The new association now manages the network which has become totally oriented to the support of people and organizations who act for a better and fairer world community.
What is an hour of altruism and how is it created?
As Euro and Dollars exist mostly as digital units in the computers of the banks, Hours of altruism are digital units which exist only in our computer.
Money creation is generally not related to any special action but done in very very very simple resume when there is a need of a bigger quantity of money.
Complementary currencies and time-banks normally create their units of exchange when a new member join their system so joining the system is a very important thing because additional units enter in the system of exchange and more units mean more options to make exchanges.
In our network the system of creation is quite different. We think that the simple act of joining a system doesn’t create richness and doesn’t change anything in the real world. The real change is to start to act doing something useful for the whole community. So the creation of Hours of Altruism happens only when altruistic people and organizations act together for the general health and wellness of people and ecosystems, solving causes of past, present and future issues and not wasting time on their effects. An example of creation of HA is helping victims of earthquake making them able to create a new better reality of sustainability as it has been done (and still doing) in last 3 years in Pescomaggiore(AQ) supporting the local project EVA (Eco Villaggio Autocostruito).
When all these people create hours of altruism the digital units are put in their personal online accounts which will indicate their efforts for a better world.
Everyone inside the network can help everyone inside and outside the circuit offering his knowledge, skills and objects to who need them. All his activity then can be confirmed on his personal online account by who received the help. When someone receives an help, he can confirm it writing how many hours the helper used to help him. This action is not a barter/trade or payment at all but simply a way to understand how much help we give to the others. These hours of altruism will not be spent buying, paying or exchanging anything. But they can be used to confirm the help that we receive. In the shape it is pretty similar to a payment with money, hours or local currencies but in the substance nobody is forced to confirm the received help to the helper. It’s only a question of will. Who knows how much important is to help the others will appreciate the help and will confirm it with exact sum of hours of altruism, not less. If he doesn’t have the needed quantity it’s up to him to activate himself to give more help than requested. If someone doesn’t want to confirm the received help he’s free to do not do it. But this behaviour of course is quite strange and non sense in our system and is normally used by people who usually ask more than receive. But for us is not a problem at all. All these people are free to remain in our system in the group made just for them, called “Our parasite friends” .
Why an online account?
“Isn’t it easier to do without an account?” they ask us often. Yes, it would be surely easier but it would be the same as it goes in all the world. What do you do generally to trust a person? You listen and judge what s/he says because you can’t wait to see what s/he will do. And usually you vote who is very good to speak. And what is the result? That a lot of people speak of helping the others but very few people really help anyone.
So we have an online account where we can show to the others the difference between speaking and doing.
Who can join the network?
All intelligent life forms of any species, number of legs, size, color and social class, associations, organizations or business activities. They can be part of it on condition that they respect the moral principles of the circuit. For obvious reasons the participation to this network is highly opposed to persons who contribute (or contributed in the past) to the general decline of our society. Yes, politicians, criminals and preachers could be admitted only after careful assessment and positive vote of the members.