Complementary Currencies/BoK EN - Time Banking

General Description

Time Banks are bookkeeping systems using a complementary currency (service credit) for rewarding ‘voluntary’ work that contributes to community building and the social economy. In the words of Gill Seyfang (2002:4): “Time Banks are a type of community currency which turn unpaid time into a valuable commodity, and aim to build social capital and promote community self-help through mutual volunteering (both giving and receiving help in exchange for time credits)”. As opposed to an ordinary volunteering agency, volunteers are rewarded for their contribution in a Time Bank with time credit upon which they can receive ‘voluntary’ work themselves. This voluntary work usually includes social services like education, babysitting, healthcare, computer tuition, gardening, Do It Yourself (DIY), do the shopping and so forth. Time Banks as a rule attract socially excluded groups of people (mostly the unemployed, the poor, the retired, the elderly, the disabled), volunteers, and those dependent upon receiving services (e.g. the elderly and the disabled) (Seyfang 2004a: 244).