Flow is a fundamental part of our lives, if we only ever take and never give back, humanity will be in serious trouble! With access to 750 smart brains in Perth, Western Australia, we have set out to change the way we give back to the community by helping one not-for-profit at a time over a two day coding marathon, starting this weekend!
The first organisation Flow Perth worked with the Miracle Babies Foundation. The Foundation is Australia’s leading organisation supporting premature and sick newborns, their families and the hospitals that care for them. With more than 45,000 babies born premature or sick in Australia every year, it isn’t a surprise to find that some of the volunteers have been personally affected and see this as a great way to help out other families going through the same experiences.
Flow Perth organiser Richard McAllister said 'my beautiful daughter Lulu Belle came along 4 weeks earlier than planned. She spent 9 days in the neonatal ward in St John’s of Gods hospital in Subiaco. Even though the hospital staff were amazing, the whole experience was extremely stressful, worrying and lonely. Having support when times are tough is the key to great friendships and communities. We met lots of great families in the neonatal ward and are still friends to this day. Even though our experience was very small in the scheme of premature babies, we know how it feels and are so pleased to know that there is support out there from the Miracle Babies Foundation. If all we do in the first Flow Perth event is help one baby or one family then everything we have done has been a success.'
The specialised skills on offer for the weekend include coding, customer journey flows, user experience specialists, designers and social media strategy experts. The event is so important to the foundation that Founder Melinda Cruz flew in from Sydney to attend.
On the 16th of August 2013the Flow Perth kicked off. The weekend was catering by local King street cafe 'Uncle Joes Mess'. Sunday lunchtime the team showcase their work and give the Miracle Babies Foundation packaged up solutions to start to implement. The Photographers from 'twoandahalf-photographers‘ gave up their weekend to capture the first event which is hosted and sponsored by Bankwest.
“Having an online presence that is effective and efficient is so incredibly important to our large miracle community. It is a vital resource for our families that is available to them 24/7 wherever they are on their journey and it is one of the primary ways we communicate and connect with them, the health professionals we work with and our amazing supporters. We are not a rich charity and without the extreme generosity of the FLOW volunteers would never have access to such expertise. We are humbled by their willingness to help us help others”