Czech portal chcipomoct.cz connects those who need aid with volunteers during COVID-19 pandemic

The Academic Center of Student Activities, based in Brno, Czech Republic, has launched a portal, chcipomoct.cz ("I Want To Help") where both individuals and organizations who need aid as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and volunteers offering their assistance can sign up. The portal should serve the purpose of easily categorizing and distributing volunteer help, the director of the center, Jaroslav Švec, told the Czech News Agency.

The portal was created by the center's 15-member team in collaboration with several mayors and organizers of aid. "Our effort is to coordinate, to the greatest possible degree, the demand and the supply and to contribute toward assistance reaching those in need as soon as possible in the safest possible way," the director said.

Volunteers can now click on an easy electronic form to communicate what they would like to help with, such as sewing face masks, arranging for social contact with senior citizens, shopping, taking dogs for walks, or babysitting and tutoring children. The options can be expanded according to demand.

"We are still aggregating the inquiries, above all from mayors, and we are communicating with associations that provide aid in order to ascertain what people need the most. Our team is prepared to flexibly respond to real-time situations and to continually upgrade the form according to the calls for assistance that prove to be most in demand in the days to come," the director said; many other institutions are also helping coordinate volunteers, for example, several universities are doing so on a mass scale.