“ … After watching “Hard Candy”, i’m not letting my little Mollie go into Internet again by herself! As she discover friends on the net, can come a pedophilian pig discuised as a friendly kid!” – Joanna, 50 years, Pleasentville (by e-mail)
Dear friend, much has been theorized about the fundactions of virtual relationships. Dear Mollie doesn’t make friends anymore just in the playground and in the ballet classes. In the sharing of this new internet tools, it comes new freedoms, but also new fears.
When he was surfing aroud these places, Amiko, of Anywhere, Anything, still underage, decided to trust strangers. She became a member of Be Welcome (BW). The dream was to unite all world cultures into this virtual club, and to build a better World. Everyone can join and get to know others from distant lands. In this club, even little Mollie can make her own profile. If Amiko decides to go to Pleasentville, she can contact Mollie by the club and if Joanna agrees, Mollie can offer her place for Amiko to stay or the other way around. Therefore you can be a guest or a host.
By volunteer force, the BW keeps growing. Hundreds of members from all around the Globe, ranging from Portugal to New Zealand, black to white, muslims to catholics, doctors to gipsies, are BW members. On this website, there are allways growing discussion boards, chat rooms and galleries about all topics and in many languages. The club is getting more publicity by the minute, and some people are embassators of this new travel philosophy.
Several BW meetings and Summer camps will happen all over the World. As well, several groups exist in the website: volunteers, plastic artists, musicians, scientists, naturists, bird watchers... While host and guest, a member has the chance to get a huge personal enrichment, knowing many people that want to share their culture. Most members, makes their profile thinking about this. Although, there are many that use BW to get free house. The rules to follow in a member house are established by himself in his profile: washing dishes, smoking, pets, drugs, how long the guest(s) will stay, the number of guests, are all variables that can be conditioned, the only sure thing is that it will be free of charge.
There are people who don’t want to become members because she/he can’t trust a stranger. This is because they may be afraid of being assaulted and/or robbed while guest or host. By the experience of most members, many and good friendships were born in BW and many members don’t offer their house at all, only a walk around the city, a dinner... Most guests have many offers to their hosts, new tastes, musics, places, movies. The existence of comments that cannot be edited by the owner, give an outside indication of the member’s personality and give more safety and fidelity to the system. Can a bed and breakfast or even an hotel be more saffer? Are the fears of the global village much different from the fears of our grandparents village? The distrust of the next door neighbour in the big city is not very far from the fear towards the crazy foreigner in the little village. Is it better for Mollie to trust Josh, the local “pleasant” cousin and not care about Amiko, who isn’t a local and is probably crazy?
Be Welcome: www.bewelcome.org
Hospitality Club: www.hospitalityclub.org
Couch Surfing: www.couchsurfing.com
Pomerance Pes (BW and HC member morfeu)
