TOI: Website inspires with tales of everyday heroes: July 21, 2008

Natalia Paruz, who performs in New York subway stations, could not help but notice a blind couple getting off a train at the Lexington and 59th Street stop. The pair was clearly unfamiliar with the station and asked a young man rushing by where the exit was located. Rather than merely point them in the right direction, he offered to escort the couple to the door.

Playing music around the city, Paruz has witnessed countless “smaller acts of heroism.” She has long wanted to share with others the kind deeds of New Yorkers, who she says have been unfairly stereotyped as scary and unhelpful.

Now, she sends these anecdotes to Hero Reports. Launched last month as a student project, the website asks for feel-good stories from New York and other cities.

Hero Reports aggregates, arranges, and archives brief narratives about everyday good deeds in different mediums—words, pictures, audio, and video. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduation student Alyssa Wright designed the website in response to the New York subway safety slogan: “If you see something, say something.”

This counter terrorism campaign, rolled out after the attacks of September 11, 2001, “brought suspicion into our everyday spaces,” says Wright. “Our awareness of body and space has shifted since 9/11,” she added. 

Hero Reports started as a tool of action as well as observation. Wright labels her project as a “technology of empathy,” because it acknowledges the little deeds of others—giving up a seat for a pregnant woman, helping an old man with his groceries—while encouraging people to perform their own small acts of kindness.

In addition to user-submitted pieces, Hero Reports aggregates good-news articles published by mainstream media outlets and blogosphere for additional stories with a positive urban outlook.

“I don’t believe that technology will save the world,” says Wright. “But technology does have the power to bring things together. Information about good deeds is out there in the newspapers and blogs. But you only notice it when you put it all together.” CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR