cv : voluntary web page designer

Jan 04 - Jul 04, Bolivia

Whilst stopping in Sucre, Bolivia during an 8 month trip around South America I was chatting to some of the volunteers who had stopped in Sucre to give up their time to work at the various orphanages, hospitals and other NGOs in the town. They talked about the difficulty in finding voluntary work before they arrived as most web based searches presented them with gap year companies charging them a lot of money to volunteer.

On arriving in Sucre they were therefore suprised at how many voluntary opportunities there were that they had not heard about. With this problem in mind I approached many of the NGOs in the town and offered my services to produce them a simple informative website that might help them attract volunteers and donations from overseas.

The local technical college allowed me to use their computers and with a hooky copy of Dreamweaver and Photoshop I set to work Both Adobe and Macromedia declined my request for free software. Whilst at the college I also wrote and presented a week long course in basic web design to teach new skills and encourage the students to continue after I had left. I wrote the course in English, had it translated into Spanish and taught it in Spanish, referring to the English version to help me know where I was! The course was designed to be used again by other teachers after I had left.

Working to another country's methods and cultural differences presented problems that I had to accept and work with rather than challenge. The main problem was the time it took to acquire the content and information I needed to complete the work. As a result I was unable to complete as many of the sites I wanted too, but a few of the projects are illustrated opposite.

Prados Program of Rehabilitation for Alcoholics and Drug Addicts
Click here to see website

I spent a few days with the patients at centre which provided accomodation for all patients. Spending time with them and photographing their daily activities helped me understand what they needed and what message needed portraying on the website.

ASUR - Anthropologists of the Southern Andes
Click here to see website

ASUR work to help the traditional indigenous artists of the region to generate an income from their work and helping the communities they work in. The challenge with this site was to tell their story and to present very tactile and visual products through a website.

La Com Hospitals

Click here to see website

La Com had a hospital in Sucre and also a very small clinic at a village called Kora Kora about 30 mins outside the town, The clinic was visited every morning by a team of volunteers to check on the children and their families. I spent a day being shown around by the children seeing how they lived, went to school and learnt first hand how important the clinic was to the village. Unfortunately this site was not completed, but a lot of the work was used by the parent company to raise awareness.

Logo design: Hogar Sucre Orphange

Hogar Sucre logo

Logo design: Prados

Prados logo