In It Together Signing Off for Now…
Back in March, our team at The Curve responded to the challenges and uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. We pulled together to do what we could to help one another out, both personally and professionally. During those early days of the crisis, we launched In It Together – a community project meant to keep us digitally connected whilst social distancing was – and still is – required from us all.
We aimed to utilise technology to keep communities speaking to one another. We built the In It Together platform to allow those who could provide support or a service to the most vulnerable in the community via an online presence and a way of communicating with one another in a GDPR friendly environment.
We are now in a place where the things we set out to achieve with In It Together as a support platform to help are now happening as a matter of course. We believe now is the right time to dismantle In It Together because as a community we have continued to demonstrate a lasting kindness and consideration for others’ well-being that has become indelibly ingrained in our collective human character. The pandemic has knitted communities together with a spirit of friendship and support no one could have predicted.
Why did we get involved?
As technologists we wanted to help. As we didn’t have the skill set to work on the front line of our NHS, nor were we able to provide care for the children of key workers or the capacity to manufacture ventilators. So, our team thought about how we could use our skills and time to support our community during the pandemic. We hoped In It Together would keep us all connected, providing a concrete support system in a time of great uncertainty.
In It Together was one of our attempts to help communities. We volunteered our time and skills to do our best to enable communities and businesses to continue functioning as best as possible.
We also took our response to the pandemic a step further in by announcing that we would work for any business that is driving social benefit, change, tackling the global challenge or similar for no more than cost. It was one way we could contribute support for the business community.
How did it go?
People got involved and made themselves available to deliver food, medicine and offer some friendly conversation to members of the community most isolated and vulnerable.
We have open sourced the In It Together codebase and are making it available to organisations who need to automate the processes for their volunteer workers to deliver key services to the community.
We all need help at some point and In It Together was an amazing experience that made us feel part of something really special. The sense that out of the chaos and uncertainty, we were able to do something positive and productive and kind for the people that need it most. Would we do it again? You bet we would!