VERA (Volunteer Emergency Response Alliance)
An information system that centralises emergency assistance in Bangladesh, connecting people in need with volunteers, donors, hospitals, blood banks and relief organisations.
When a flood or a fire hits, help exists but is scattered: a volunteer group on Facebook, a blood bank with its own phone line, an NGO with supplies and no way to know who needs them. VERA is one system where a citizen posts a need and the people who can meet it are matched and notified.
The idea was mine. I ran the analysis and design phases, from business analysis through PRD, SRS and technical design, all of which ship in the repo under docs/. Mahmudul Hasan Joy and I built it together.
What it does (v1)
- Role-based auth for citizens, volunteers, donors, NGOs, hospitals and admins.
- Emergency requests and blood requests with donor matching and notifications.
- NGO resources, coordination, donations and campaigns.
- Shelters, incidents, volunteer opportunities and certificates.
- Disaster coverage monitoring on a map, with nearby-location search on OpenStreetMap markers.
- In-app notifications, with optional email and SMS channels.
- An admin reporting dashboard.
Stack
Next.js 16 and React 19 with Tailwind 4 and Leaflet on the front; FastAPI, SQLAlchemy and JWT auth on the back. SQLite for local development, PostgreSQL under Docker and in production, Alembic for migrations. docker compose up brings up Postgres, the API and the web app together.
Known limitations
Donations are logged, not charged; there is no payment gateway. No native mobile or offline mode. Email and SMS need external credentials and are off by default.