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SHAID web sites
The Beneficiary… Single Homeless Action Initiative in Derwentside, (SHAID).
SHAID is a small local charity, established in 1993 as a response to youth homelessness in Derwentside. They work with young people who are ‘socially excluded’. e.g. homeless, care-leavers, victims of abuse, unemployed or those not engaged in education. Due to their youth and previous experiences the young people they deal with lack the personal and social skills necessary to get on in life. Low self-esteem, lack of self confidence and feelings of isolation and loneliness are common problems. Many lead chaotic and transient life-styles and often have health and emotional problems.
SHAID works pro-actively with young people and communities to raise awareness of youth homelessness and leaving home issues.
The Brief… Create a professional web presence that can easily and regularly be built upon and updated by staff and volunteers.
The site needs to appeal to young people and reflect the young people’s activities as well as present a professional image to funders, supporters and partners. The site should not only present news and information of SHAID activities and projects but should be of such a quality that it can be actively used to promote SHAID and attract web site visitors that might not otherwise know of the organisation and its projects.
Click an image to enlarge
The Solution… When reviewing the SHAID brief it quickly became clear that there were two very different target audiences to attract and satisfy. The natural development of SHAID and its projects had already created a purposeful division within its brand identity. SHAID having been established and presented as the professional charitable organisation that can deliver, while the name and brand “Shaidy Characters” was clearly being used to represented the young people, presenting a more youth culture style and presence that they can be part off and easily relate to.
While the budget for one website build was already set in stone as the amount available from the funder, Design Aid utilised its own resources and previously developed designs and Content Management System to produce two web sites within the same budget. This allowed us to satisfy the main directive from the original brief producing a very professional and business like web site as well as a second web site specifically for the young people that they themselves could use to showcase their own success stories and involvement in Shaidy Characters activities and SHAID projects.
Community Building Web 2.0 function were added to both websites so that volunteers, supporters, funders and partner organisations or voluntary sector workers can login and add their own content and news of their own relevant projects. Having established a separate identity and sub domain URL (address) for the Shaidy Characters web site we could also invite SHAID’s beneficiaries, the young people to sign in and make their own contributions allowing them to write and publish across all media in their own distinctive style that their peers can relate to with no fear of damage to the professionalism of the core brand or web site.
You can see both these web sites by following these links:
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