Facebook introduces Community Help feature for disaster situations

Social networking giant Facebook has introduced Community Help feature, a new update to Safety Check that lets people find and give help in the form of food, shelter and transportation after a crisis. For now, Facebook will make Community Help available for natural and accidental incidents, such as an earthquake or building fire.

If an incident is a natural or accidental disaster, people will now see Community Help feature within Safety check. They can find or give help, and message others directly to connect from within Safety Check after a crisis. Previously, Safety check feature were only limited to inform your family and friends that you are safe.

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This means that in addition to telling friends you're safe and checking on them, you can also find help or give help to people in your community. Categories for help include things like food, water, shelter, transportation, baby supplies, equipment, toiletries, and a variety of other relief supplies and services that are accounted as basic requirements for people in the recovery period after a crisis.

Facebook mentions that since the feature is within Safety Check, it means all the people that are coming to Safety Check through notifications and friend invites can now access this feature without having to create separate groups or documents.

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The posts made through Community Help are searchable and discoverable because Facebook has added structured data like categories, number of people, and an approximate location, which will help create many more successful matches between people requesting help and offering help than before.

Besides, you can see all the offers and requests for help plotted on a map as the posts will have an approximate location associated with it. The feature will also allow people to close out their requests or offers for help, which helps keep the Community Help feed fresh and updated.

It is worth mentioning that for Community Help to work, Safety Check must first be activated. And this happens after global crisis reporting agencies such as NC4 and iJET International alert Facebook about an incident.
Facebook is rolling the feature in India, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia.