Hi all,
I’m not sure if Xojo is the right tool nor wether there might be better solutions to the problem.
I assume you have heard of the refugee crisis in Europe, especially Germany.
Three weks ago I decided to get involved, and it has been immensely frustrating. Here about 5 miles outside Heidelberg the former US barracks Patrick Henry Village (PHV) is being used as a primary refugee center (theyll house asylum seekers up to a maximum of two years). Currently it houses about 2700 refugees, over 700 of them small kids.
The refugees are able to come out as they please. In Heidelberg there are a lot of people willing to help, however for security reasons (Neo-Nazi threats) they are not allowed inside PHV.
So the problem is:
- a great need for help on one side, a great willingness to help on the other, and a security service (of 30 people in total providing 24/7 security) which is the bottle neck.
- a work- and labour-intensive way of dealing with refugees by the administration (which is not using IT as it can be used; everyone wants to stay in control and not do anything that might backfire)
The solution is fairly obvious (at least to me): enable people to self-organize.
- Have a forum where refugees can register their abilities, so if something is needed people can quickly look up whom to contact (eg translate Farsi into English, German into Persian, fix something, etc)
- Have a forum where refugees can say what they need (cooker, toys, lamp) or want to do (language course, visit the zoo, meet for a meal, singing)
- Have a forum where people can say what they what they are willing to do to help (have people translating for those who dont speak German)
- enable them to get into contact with each other
- have a centralized list of suitable locations (like community centers, youth enters, other available rooms)
- have an automatic booking system where someone can say I need a place for 10 people do do cooking / singing / lanhguage courses where the one booking is responsible for cleaning up and returning the location in good condition
Im still in the process of working out the details and looking for ways to force the administration to implement them (everyone is saying I should go to somebody else and I end up where I started). Im not sure Xojo is the best suited tool for the job, and if I use it it might be enough to write the necessary open-source web app (hopefully with the help of people on the forum) and ask Xojo for permission to distribute compiled versions (someone else would need to compile it as I do not have the web edition). Next week I’ll also be trying to get the University IT department (and some others) involved.
So my questions are:
Can Xojo Web Edition handle this? (If yes then I guess with PostGres at the backend)
If not then what other tools would you recommend? Which forum software?
Thanks for any advice.
P.S. Any Access programmers around who can help to write a client management software to be used in PHV for the Diakonisches Hilfswerk (for free) ?