Who would have thought 10 years ago that in 2015 the UK would see record numbers of people visiting food banks, 2.3 million children living in relative poverty and a rapidly growing disparity between the rich and poor. Never in the past fifty years has there been such wealth inequality and the situation is only getting worse. In 2008 the financial crisis hit with a subsequent global recession yet during the 7 years since the rich have got richer and the poor have found their cost of living rising with stagnant wages.

However, since the financial crisis of 2008 a new phenomenon has been on the rise in response to people’s struggles to get on in their daily life. People have realised that they have a vast array of goods and skills that other people may want or need and the rebirth of sharing has occurred giving rise to the term the sharing economy.

People are sharing other people’s homes when going on holiday, leaving their dog with another person rather than using a dog kennel when going away. Car sharing is experiencing rapid growth and even bicycle sharing is on the rise. People with full time jobs are using their car as a cab for extra income and we are now even seeing growth in peer to peer lending. But what about the skills people have and the tasks they can do, they don’t yet share these.

That’s why we have launched CareToShare to show people that regardless of their wealth they can learn new skills by using the skills they already have. You may speak another language and want to learn a new sport, there are thousands of people out there that want to learn that other language you speak and can teach you the sport you are keen to learn. You may need one extra pair of hands to get your decorating finished and find that someone on CareToShare can help with decorating and wants to learn something you can teach or have some gardening help that you can assist with.

It is not necessary to always meet up with someone to learn a new skill, there are plenty of opportunities for people to gain advice simply by communicating through our messaging service or by taking the time to have a discussion on the phone. Early users have indicated to us that they would like guidance when choosing a new pet in the care and upkeep of the animal they choose yet don’t feel they can easily get first hand advice. These users can simply click under the pets category on CareToShare select the animal they are looking for guidance with and communicate with one of the many users offering advice. There may be something that user is looking for in return or a one off task or perhaps the user offering advice may even want to do it as they enjoy passing on their knowledge for the benefit of others.

Many people in today’s society want to learn new skills but simply don’t feel able to pay the exhorbitant fees that are charged. A parent wanting Maths tuition for their child who is due to sit their GCSE exam can not be expected to part with £45 per hour per week yet there are thousands of people qualified to provide this tuition who don’t work as paid tutors but will want to learn new skills or have tasks done and can provide the tutoring in exchange for these skills and tasks. Each and every one of us has something that we can offer, be it a skill they can teach, a task they can complete or knowledge of a hobby that someone else is keen to start taking part in but does not know where to start.

We have spoken to early users of our site that want to improve their Excel skills to benefit their career but don’t want to face the expense of an intensive course that they have to attend. These users are asking us if this is something that CareToShare will cover and the answer is yes, we have other users telling us they can teach advanced Excel and Word and Powerpoint and there are a variety of skills and tasks these users are looking to learn or have done in return. There is already a huge diversity of skills on offer from our earliest users and the chances are what you are looking for will be covered immediately. From gluten free cooking to teaching a small group of infants to read to tennis lessons to mentoring and career advice for young adults we already have an exciting list of skills and tasks on offer and we are just beginning our journey.

Our founding team are always available to interact with our users as we are here to make their experience as easy and enjoyable as possible. Whether it’s a new skill category or a change in functionality of the site or just to tell us how happy you are with your experience at CareToShare we always want to hear from you, you can reach us on our contact us page here or via Twitter or Facebook 

Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below!