The below is a transcript of the Wonder Women podcast, which can be found on YouTube here. Content has been edited for clarity. See part two here.
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A lot of it came from my own personal experience as a career working mother. We were always a nuclear family here and one of the things that I often wondered was back in the olden days when you had an extensive network and there was no technology, you would take the time to meet people face to face and talk to them. Through that interaction, you come to rely on them to do certain things for you. And I felt like with modern technology, most of us today are stuck to our phones. Our primary means of communication or interaction with people now has some technical gadget or device.
I feel like that interpersonal connection is suffering because of that because when you’re talking to people, there’s no barrier. You tend to open up, you tend to discuss things very differently, but when you’re suddenly using a phone, it sort of restricts you. You have to watch what you are doing.
One of the things that I felt was a need to be connected with people, especially those who are trying to get through life. Every day is a challenge, we need a lot of things done, and there are a lot of demands on us. I felt like there was a need for a solution that went beyond just sharing photos and chatting to using this technology to help address these everyday demands that we have on ourselves. Anything from “hey I’m trying to plant some trees next week, can someone come out and help me?” rather than go out and hire a gardener to do this because you know in the olden days as two friends or two people who loved gardening would get together and do it and it would be a normal way of how we do things. I felt like there was a missing link where people do people collaboration on common day-to-day activities was missing and that led me to Enfavr.
Monica Antoki
And it’s a fantastic way of building community as well because as we are right now spread all over the world, there’s very few people who still live where they grew up. Most of everybody’s moved away for college and they kept moving on for the next job so sometimes if you’re in a new community, this could help bridge that gap. This definitely bridged the gap of “Hey, I’m in a new community so let’s make some new friends and let’s start helping people around here and let’s get some help for the new things that I need.”
You’re so right and I think for me, the fundamental thing was people are basically good, and they usually want to help others out. Those who want to help don’t know who needs help and those who are seeking for help don’t know who to ask. It’s just a matter of bringing these people together, but also creating the circle of trust among friends and communities.
The fundamental concept for me was people tend to do favors for people they trust and care about, and having this trust aspect as part of that community was important. Normally we hesitate to ask people for help for whatever reasons — we’re afraid of being judged and we refrain from doing what it is that we want to do because of these factors. My goal, therefore, was to create a platform which brought objectivity. “I will help you, you will help me, and let’s be good contributing members of society.” That was the fundamental principle behind Enfavr.
Monica Antoki
That is very cool. What was your aha! Moment? What was it that personally affected you that says “Okay, I have to do this, that’s needed, it needs to happen.”
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