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Jon Snow Interviews... Edgar Cahn |
Jon Snow Interviews ... 
In these interviews Jon Snow talks to some extraordinary people and finds out what motivates them to give extra time and energy to others.
In this film he meets the founder of Time Banking (formerly Time Banks), Professor Edgar Cahn, to discover how he devised this unique project.
Professor Cahn had an illustrious career as a lawyer, civil rights champion and something of a "troublemaker and hell-raiser". But it took its toll on his health at the age of 44.
It was whilst lying in a hospital bed surrounded by 15 to 20 nurses and doctors that a thought process began, one that would eventually lead to today’s Time Banking initiative.
"I felt useless and for me being alive was making a contribution, having my existence make a difference to somebody else. That was 1980 and we were declaring all kinds of other people useless; people on public assistance, unemployed people, disabled people, and teenagers amongst others. I thought they must not feel very good being declared useless or as you call in this country, chillingly, redundant. So I thought to myself, there’s got to be some way of putting people and needs and problems together," recalls Cahn.
 Jon Snow and Edgar Cahn
The premise behind what evolved into the Time Banking scheme is essentially to meter a person’s contributions and record it as part of a reciprocal arrangement with others in the community.
In a structure not unlike a ‘babysitting circle’, the Time Banking scheme is an attempt to say "my hour equals your hour, whether you’re a doctor, surgeon, a lawyer, a plumber, whatever". Each contribution you make as a volunteer is recorded as a credit on the Time Banking database.
This means that if you have saved your credits, for say community gardening, and find yourself in need of a plumber to fix a cistern in your home, the scheme can arrange for a plumber to come round for an hour, or more depending on your credits.
"So the message I have to give by reciprocal giving is: I need what you can do in your world as badly as you need what I can do in my world with my skills. And unless we do give that message, we’re finding that the message we’re giving is selfishness and greed is the only way to survive," continues Cahn. "I think there’s a basic human need to feel that you’ve made a difference in the world and that your being here makes a difference."
The scheme now runs in both the US and the UK. If you would like to get involved with a Time Banking scheme near you, or would like to volunteer your time and skills to a specific organisation then follow the links below for some useful information on where to get started.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 06 June 2008 )
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