Time Banking
Description
1.
"Time banks, a mechanism that relies on mutual collaboration to promote sustainability and cohesiveness in communities, can leverage the use of new communication tools to lead deprived communities towards prosperity and heal the gaping omissions in public services.
Time banks effectively use people’s time and talents as currency for exchanges of value. It's been effectively used across the world to tackle explicit local issues, such as childcare provision or urban regeneration. It's also been used to reach those from socially excluded groups who have unmet needs, such as minority groups, single parents, and the unemployed. Time banks have been successful in delivering small but important local results because they excel at building networks of reciprocal social relations, trust, civic participation and community solidarity.
Time banks rely on directories of activities and participants to track the variety and availability of services offered. Often, knowing in advance when we will have free time to spare is difficult to anticipate.
Time banks have traditionally focused on involving participants from marginalized communities to help themselves. Today, with an online community eager to get involved, and with the emergence of tools that facilitate collaboration, time banks shouldn’t limit their sourcing to local resources, but instead take advantage of the "global brain" (in projects that would benefit from this type of input) to solve community problems and improve social cohesiveness. Time banks complemented by effective communication tools offer a great model to bridge local community participation with external resources, creating strong local communities that branch outward." (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007147.html)
2. Ivan Tsikota:
"Just like LETS or barter networks, time banks are bookkeeping systems in the first place, where time is used as a complementary currency. Naughton-Doe (2011) states that they are: “a community currency with an explicit social objective to grow social capital and combat social exclusion”. Time banks took off in 1986 in the United States with the initiative of Edgar S. Cahn, who aimed at addressing social issues and problems (Greco, 2001). By 2000, there were 300 time banks in the world (Lietaer, 2001). In 2007, there were 55 time banks in the United States; the United Kingdom had 84 active initiatives and 41 were in development (Collom, 2008).
In Sweden, time banking started in 2007 with the introduction of the TidsNätverket i Bergsjön 7initiative. People taking part in a time bank get a certain amount of credits for their work (usually, health-care, education, housekeeping etc.) and can later exchange them for the services of other people. Some systems, e.g. Time Bank Athens, incorporate a demurrage option - credits expire after six months (Sotiropoulou, 2001). Generally, membership consists of socially excluded groups of people: unemployed, poor, retired etc. (Seyfang, 2004). A major difference from LETS is the focus of time banks on services and social orientation (Seyfang, 2002). Naughton-Doe (2011) distinguishes two types of time banking models: person-to-person, and person-to-agency. In the former case services are provided by citizens in an hour-for-hour exchange.
with the help of a broker. In the latter, contracts are signed with local community organizations. An example of the person-to-person approach is the Ithaca Hours system, which was established in 1991 and quickly spread all over the United States (Collom, 2008). Person-to-agency systems can be represented by Time Banking Wales: within this approach, the focus is put on engaging with existing civil society organizations.: (Thesis: [[Increasing Local Economic Sustainability}}
Example
"Probably the largest time exchange in the world is the Furai Kippu in Japan. Fureai Kippu (“Caring Relationship Tickets”) was created in 1995 to help families who had migrated to other parts of Japan care for their elder family members that they became separated from. Seniors can help each other and earn the hour credits, family members can earn credits and transfer them to their parents who live elsewhere, or users may keep credits for when they become sick or elderly themselves." (http://shareable.net/blog/how-to-exchange-time)
More Information
- Overview article, at http://shareable.net/blog/how-to-exchange-time
- Time Dollars, see also at http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=895
- Details on the Time Dollars organization at Time Banks
- Very clear video explanation by the founder of Time Banks: Edgar Cahn on Time Banking [1]