Nabuur

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Nabuur is a website consisting of a number of online communities, or villages. It aims to help in the development of impoverished communities by enabling people from other countries to help the community members through Nabuur's website.

The word Nabuur is an old word in Dutch meaning "neighbour".

It is run by the Nabuur Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Amersfoort, Netherlands. Nabuur started operating in 30 October 2001. Its founder, Siegfried Woldhek, is a former director of the Dutch branch of the World Wildlife Fund.

Nabuur system

The core of the system employed by Nabuur is the concept of village. There is a simple mechanism at the website for registering a village. Communities in all parts of the world can register in Nabuur's website and state the issues they face. Such issues might be AIDS epidemics, low literacy rates, the construction of water wells, and gender inequalities among others.

From that moment on this community is called a village, in spite of the community's current geographical status. Some are as few as 50 people, some as many as a million. Then a facilitator (a volunteer worker trained by Nabuur) is appointed for this village's web page.

Now other users can sign in as virtual neighbors for this village. The neighbors will look for possible ideas concerning the issues raised by the village, and then present possible ideas for the community to consider. If project funding or expert involvement is to be sought, that is for the local community to do—with support from the virtual neighbors.

Results and Achievements

Some of Nabuur's recent successes in both finished projects and for works in progress in helping or establish certain goals include:

Nabuur's volunteer Raul Alberto Caceres was honoured with a United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Award (2006/12/05)
Establishing a Beekeeping operation in Gbongay, Sierra Leone (2006/12/04)
Books and funds donated for the library of Amazigh (Berbere) people living in Imhilen, Morocco (2006/11/28)
A website created for the ancient Dogon tribe of Mali regarding tourism (2006/09/21)
Creating and monitoring a dairy co-operative in Khunti, India (2006/09/21)
Acquiring donations of Personal Computers for children in Oyoko, Ghana (2006/02/01)
Improving the productivity of women dairy farmers in Menengai, Kenya (2007)

Praise from former U.S President Bill Clinton

Former U.S President Bill Clinton spoke about Nabuur during the World Meeting in the Netherlands on December 7th 2006. The WorldMeeting was organized by the Nationale Postcode Loterij which is a financier of Nabuur.

Bill Clinton is quoted as saying:

"We need to find ways to come together, organize, to do things. NABUUR has been a big part of the Clinton Global Initiative and the work they do is wonderful. I appreciate the fact that you support them and their work with villages around the world."