Introducing Thrivespring
The coronavirus pandemic has clearly demonstrated that we live in an increasingly complex and unpredictable world. As the frequency of disasters continues to rise, it is crucial that we focus more attention on the vulnerabilities built into our critical infrastructure and global supply chains. Severe disruptions in one sector can lead to cascading failures in others, with catastrophic results.
Long-term community resilience, in the context of local food and water security, local energy production, resilient communications and neighborhood emergency assistance, is a big part of the solution.
This is the purpose of Thrivespring — a collaborative online platform for community resilience, self-sustainability and disaster risk management. We are launching this spring with one main feature — the Community Resilience Projects — and we’ll be adding more features on a regular basis.
The Community Resilience Projects feature will help people connect with others to work together on initiatives for long-term resilience building. Projects and organizations who sign up will be able to request volunteers, resources, sponsors and partners; individuals, groups and businesses will be able to find local projects and organizations to offer their support.
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People are hard-wired to help each other during disasters. That’s just who we are as a species. We come together and we pitch in, helping neighbours and strangers alike, regardless of background or beliefs.
This platform shines a spotlight on that very human instinct to help each other and work together to strengthen our communities. It also focuses on our commonalities.
We all want to keep our families safe and healthy. We want to always have secure access to nutritious food and clean water. We want reliable energy and communications. These are basic, universal needs. And with the technology that is available today, combined with the right resources and a lot of determination, we can start down the path toward self-sustaining, resilient communities.
Our Community Resilience Projects feature was created with this in mind. It helps people connect with others in their communities to work together for long-term resilience building. This can be achieved through a wide variety of projects, such as community-owned renewable energy microgrids; urban agriculture cooperatives; wireless communication networks; rainwater harvesting projects; neighbourhood emergency response; and community assistance groups. And while people work together on projects during normal times, connections between neighbours and social groups are strengthened.
The impulse to help our fellow humans kicks into overdrive when we see others in trouble in the wake of a disaster. It transcends differences and reminds us to focus on our common humanity. It inspires us to come up with creative, grassroots solutions to urgent challenges.
Let’s choose to harness this goodwill, cooperative spirit and resourcefulness at all times, whether we are facing a disaster or not. Let’s work together to create more robust, adaptive, prepared and connected communities.
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To hear when we launch the platform, please go to thrivespring.net/ and sign up for our email list.
Building and maintaining a platform of this kind is expensive. If you would like to support us, please go to patreon.com/thrivespring or paypal.me/thrivespring for a one-time contribution.
Thank you very much for your support.
