I’m taking today’s post to talk about an awesome project I’m doing for school.
Every year in January, Elon sends its iMedia students to different countries to help different organizations build a web presence. These trips and projects are called “fly-ins.” I’m so excited to travel to the Dominican Republic with a group of six other students and two faculty members to work with a women’s co-op and help them establish themselves online. We’ll be there the first week in January gathering information, conducting interviews, taking tons of photos and videos, working on our website, and teaching these women how to use the software they’ll need to know to maintain the site after we hand it over to them.
The women are part of a group called Creaciones Ecologicas la Colonia, which is a subgroup of the non-profit Fundacion UMD. They work with recycled and sustainable materials to make crafts and resources, like purses and bags, and then sell them. These sales go back to supporting the women and their families, and the Cotui community. The website would help them sell their goods outside the Dominican Republic.
The problem is, the women have no means of maintaining the website after we’re done. They have no computers or similar resources. That’s (also) where we–and you, too–come in. We want to provide the co-op with a computer to help them grow their online presence, and in turn their business.
We’ve started an Indiegogo page to help raise the money to buy a computer for these women so they can run the website after we give it to them. We had a bacon sale last week to raise money; while that was a great start, there’s still more to be done.
Please consider donating to the cause. By helping us, you’re helping them. No donation is too small. If you cannot donate, please share the page.
Thank you in advance! We are grateful for any donation or sharing our story and mission.
