I like to look for names/domains for things I wish existed. Things that if I had the time to build myself, would satisfy a need of my own. Many years ago when my Mom, thousands of miles away, was having health issues, I wished that I could ‘trade’ someone spending quality time with my Mom, for me helping out their someone near to where I lived. A platform that would facilitate storing and exchanging volunteer hours. For example, I’d take your Mom for a walk in Santa Monica in exchange for you taking mine for a walk in Toronto. But the problem I couldn’t wrap my head around was how to easily vet the folks who would be volunteering. I looked into how babysitting platforms were doing it. Also TaskRabbit, those kinds of services. And it really seemed like a big problem, too big for me at that time anyway.
I just kept hearing in my head the Queen anthem (license of which graciously donated for such a good cause)… We Will We Will Walk You!
But how gratifying to learn recently that just such a system exists! Mostly in Japan.
Fureai kippu is a Japanese sectoral currency created in 1995 by the Sawayaka Welfare Foundation so that people could earn credits helping seniors in their community.
The basic unit of account is an hour of service to an elderly person. Sometimes seniors help each other and earn the credits, other times family members in other communities earn credits and transfer them to their parents who live elsewhere.(wikipedia)
This is an older video but eloquently explains how it works.