Helping Hands
The Project
Helping Hands is a tool to aid homeless people,refugees and those under the poverty line in Ireland. Its based on the principles of UN Global Goal 10 - Reduced Inequalities, while trying to lessen Goals 1&2&3 no poverty,zero hunger and Good Health and Wellbeing. It allows people get or give a helping hand, to those in need in their locality. It uses Google Maps API to find their nearest homeless shelters and nearest vital services. It also uses Activity Starters to link up with many different websites which are useful to both Refugees and Homeless people.It allows users request donations of specific items or services they require and matches them with people who wish to help and register to donate time/skills/goods detailing what it is they can help with, where and when.
Team Comments
We chose to make this project because...There is a homeless crisis in Ireland, the number of people living in poverty is rising and add to this, thousands of Ukrainian refugees arriving many with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the shoes on their feet. Its clear we have many people who need a helping hand!
What we found difficult and how we worked it outWe attempted to use Firebase to store the data inputted in our app, however it is an experimental feature in App Inventor and even though we had the code correct, we still had issues. We replaced it with a WebDB and are aiming to make it on a platform that works with Firebase
Next time, we would...If we had more time, we would add in more services that our target group would need, as we only included services we found during our research to be most vital. We also have our app currently available in only two languages- English and Ukrainian. We hope to have it available in more languages
