I was out on one of my bike rides and I was not far from home, I just had to bike through the Village of Lijnden to reach home. Riding on Hoofdweg alongside the canal, I approached Lijnden, when I discovered the following sign on a lamp post.

This is another take on the Neighborhood Watch concept that is common throughout North America, the United Kingdom, and Canada and other countries.

People in a neighborhood join to look out for each other’s properties to discourage crime, especially burglary.

For me using WhatsApp for neighborhood watch, is a great way to use a technology to discourage crime. I did some research on the web and find out that this is not that new, there are over 3,300 WhatsApp groups throughout the Netherlands and Belgium.

There is a website wabp that coordinates all these groups onto a map, and you can add yourself to the group for your neighborhood or if there is no group in your neighborhood you can start and manage one.

The advantage of using WhatsApp is the collaboration between neighboring groups,  to inform each other about suspects that have been spotted in the vicinity, so the groups can work for safer neighborhood.