I could not sleep because I have an idea.
I am watching all of the refugees that are now being shipping all over the United States and then I see stories of family members who are looking for these family members. Right now it seems there is no central resource for information.
I am proposing that we set up a website to help people find their families. I am posting this here because I know that a PHP and MySQL backbone could handle this but I have no idea how to code it.
This is what it would look like.
Main page would have two areas. #1 for refugees to register... #2 for people with family in the area to register...
In area #1 the refugees information would be as detailed as possible without compromising security and not giving the chance for idenity theft but detailed enough for a search to be able to take place for these people by family members. In other words, it could have name, former address, and maybe age. If possible it could even have a place to upload a photo. There would also need to be a way to update this data as the person was moved to a different shelter.
In area #2 people with loved ones in the affected areas would be able to enter the criteria of people that they were looking for. This would search the current profiles and if nothing was returned, they would be able to create a new "searching for" record. If a person meeting this criteria was found, an e-mail would be sent to the person that was searching and they would be able to view that record to see if it was in fact the person they had been looking for.
The whole thing would need to stay as simple as possible and be able to handle huge amounts of data.
If this thing would get enough publicity, I am sure there would be voluteers in the area that would be willing to take their laptops and their digital cameras to the shelters to register the people in the database.
Something needs to be done. If this helps one family reunite, that is one more family that the Red Cross or FEMA does not have to worry about. They can use the resources elsewhere and that wouldmake this wole effort worth it.
I am sure that some of the agencies involved have this capability but right now they are overwhelmed with other things and they could use this information when they get to that point of it being useful.
So tell me what you think. Give suggestions, ideas, volunteer to help with the coding.
I will pay for the hosting and organize anyone who wants to volunteer. E-mail me at refugeeregistry@yahoo.com if you want to help. Include in the e-mail what you want to do and when you can do it and I will contact you with detials and updates.
This is the first place I have posted this.
Thank you for your time.
