Thu, 2008/01/24 - 01:20

Hi. My name is Kent and I just registered with nabuur today. I've been working the web doing site maintenance for about 10 years now, and know HTML fairly well. I don't do the fancy stuff, but if you need help let me know.

Thu, 2008/01/24 - 06:23

Hello Ken and Everyone!

Thank you so much for the offer of assistance. We will definitely take you up on your offer. Robert and I have just begun to work out a few ideas. We would like to put together a few options for the community to decide on, regarding layout and colour, etc. Eric (the local representative) along with other community members will decide on content as well.

In addition, the hope is that one of the older orphans that is interested in learning about website design and maintenance, will learn how to add and update the content and photos and so forth. Therefore the site has to be fairly simple, as he or she will not have in-depth training or local access to support. However, this portion requires that the individual has access to a computer and the internet. We are still trying to find a laptop that he or she could use and so that the community members can more easily participate (as it would be portable). A cell phone to connect to the internet would also be needed. So....if anyone knows where we can get a laptop (new or used) and a cell phone (for free maybe!!) let me know.

One other item, with the recent political situation in Kenya, contact with Eric and the community members may be sporadic. Eric has tried to maintain contact as best as he can, but since he travels into Kisumu to use an internet cafe, he has been restricted lately. Some days it is just not safe to go into town and to travel. With that said, we can do as much as we can to keep things moving forward, but there may be some delays.

Best wishes,

Barb

Fri, 2008/01/25 - 14:40

Dear Barb

I think it is important to go bck to Kakuei's message of 25 November or so.

In that he set out the need to define very clearly what you are wanting to convey with web presence. Perhaps some of the language and concepts need simplifying, but it would be very good if you could draw him back to go through that process before going into concrete matters.

What do you think?

best wishes

Dennis

Fri, 2008/01/25 - 18:41

:-D

Fri, 2008/01/25 - 18:42

Hi Dennis,

I guess I don't fully understand what you mean by "wanting to convey with web presence," as well as "language and concepts need simplifying." I know we have had this discussion before but I guess I don't seem to understand it fully. How do you go about defining what to convey?

Here are some of the reasons for wanting a web presence:

-To inform people about Kabondo and the organization - Kabondo Poverty Alleviation Organization
-To attract support (this includes financial support and volunteers) -start-up funds are still needed
-To open up a dialogue through a blog space
-To provide an opportunity for a student to learn a new skill (maintaining the site by adding content and photo updates on their own (this would be through a Content Management Program that basically looks like a Word document).

So what does this mean for translating into a process before getting into concrete matters? If we don't understand the process then we cannot engage in it.

I have seen many of the pages you have put together for other projects and they seem to work well. Can you explain the process you used for these communities?

The way I understand it, and please correct me if I am wrong, is you set up the initial page (the background 'stuff' - excuse my lack of technical understanding :-) ), then the Local rep and community decide on content - meaning the photos and what they want to say. You then put this on the page for them. Then I see you and the LRs referring people to the site (links in posts, through discussions and emails, etc). Is this correct? Is this the process you mean or is this more the 'concrete' stuff?

If you could clarify it would be appreciated!

Barb

Sun, 2008/01/27 - 05:09

Hi again Barb and thanks for the opportunity to respond

what I mean is that it is desirable to think of the communities presence as a whole... start from the community and work out from there, not start from 'must have a web site' and rush at that. You will understand that the 'presences' I have been trying to develop (more below) are experiments, but they reflect these things:

[1] yes, you can keep changing a web site all the time, but it really is not so easy, if you begin from the fact that readers (according to Canadian research several years ago) decide whether they like a site in thousandths of a second... you need to get the thing right and there is a great risk, in my view, with sites that have lots of menus being changed all the time, that it gets muddled. I have to take apart www.ourcongo.net because it is too hard to read and understand. You must convey very quickly THIS IS US! I think I have done this a bit more clearly at www.easterncongo.net

[2] Where do you put the news? I have chosen to use blogs and leave them with a blog address. As
http://easterncongo.blogspot.com/
http://ourcongo.blogspot.com/
Vince has had no difficulty logging into the blog, Flory has had lots of difficulty. But we are getting these records alive. You will see that at the bottom of each post at
http://ourcongo.blogspot.com/
there are labels, which will, in time, be very valuable, allowing a reader to click on a subject in the labels and see every prior posting with that label. News, history, record keeping, memory achieved with very very easy software out there in the web. You can get the look right and you can build consistent 'look' between web site (static display) and blog (news summary)

[3] This leaves an important question. Where do you build community and discussion and support and idea sharing? Nabuur allows some of this, but I made this comment yesterday to an African priest studying in Canada:
"There is also the project sites at Nabuur.com, for these projects, which serve as valuable for bringing some people to us, but the system there is difficult to use and by dividing discussion into tiny pieces, the universe of opportunity is lost sight of an energy disappears. So I am trying for an approach which will build, not dissipate, energy. As if one were, praying, to be asked to pray in one room for rain, in another room for humility, in another room for peace. But you know about these things, you are living in the West now - where we have lost wholeness of vision, placed so much in separate boxes."
For this reason I have set up email discussion groups (links from the eastern and ourcongo sites)
I have also found, especially with ourcongo - easterncongo is just a couple of months old - that as a project (a community) attracts interest, quite a lot will come from people who do not want to join Nabuur. It is also important to see - maybe three years from now - that the Kabondo community has 'outgrown' what Nabuur can do, needs its own special community.

I was speaking of the need to simplify what Kakuei was writing. It would be good to have his wisdom here, maybe he has flown, finding it not useful to look and look at Nabuur pages...

I would break this into the two parts: the static display saying THIS IS US and the lively presentation of news in a blog which says WE ARE STILL IN BUSINESS, LOOK WHAT IS HAPPENING

Yes, by the site and the blog, also building community in shared discussion... you can consider whether this works here. The great thing about the email group is that as soon as someone writes, it gets sent to all.

again, see my distinction between presenting news and having discussion... but my system is experimental...

I think that commanding blog software is a valuable start point... placing messages first, then moving on to appearance later. I ask the local community if the look is OK, but for the moment I am doing that... reasons of time and internet access. Handling the group mail, learning how to deal with Outlook, learning to search the web, all important skills. My deepest concern about CMS is to find any sites designed by non-professionals that are not ugly.

Lots of comment above, will await your feedback, maybe easier to start with a blog, for which we need good pictures and basic links and an ability to feed news which is news, and of interest. It is important for Kabondo people to realise that the Western world is generally pretty ignorant and stupid compared to traditional knowledge in traditional societies. We need educating out here. A blog called 'what we honestly think of you, fed by anonymous local representatives would be very very interesting!!

best

Dennis

Sun, 2008/01/27 - 21:54

In response on the previous message from Dennis Argall quoting Barb Briggs.

I can't agree with starting in the community whould be the first thing to do. While we have professional knowledge of developing professional websites, we can start from there. We put all the basic functionality in it, things that local community won't know from the start. This would concern merely the technical aspects.

It's not the trick to NOT change the website. It's the trick to making changing the website easy. People like to find the right elements on the same place, i agree, but having the same designer elements, the same content and the same sections won't attract returning visitors. So you got to keep changing the content and rotating some section of the structure.

For news I agree blogs can do well. But only taking the blog to be the whole site is not enough (don't know if you meant that). The blogs is no more than some newsarticle. The word 'blog' is no new technique, but just some popular word to name 'news' sections. I agree locals can take much responsibility here. We need to use it as a PART of the website.

To make it all complete, i think we need to specialize more on the targeted audience. It's NOT just setting up a nice-looking website, it NOT just about have the right content, the right techniques or update frequency. We need a way to reach visitors that will allow us to reach for the main goals as noted by Barb

In my opinion, we just need to start somewhere. From there we should work it out with the locals and the feeling of what's working for the visitors. We can monitor by then. Without starting with a website, we can't be sure of anything.

I think many of yours comments can be usefull and should be considered, but don't get stuck in defining the projectmethods and discuss issues, we can do that meanwhile. Discussion already took to long, let's get those people online!

Mon, 2008/01/28 - 19:20

Hello everyone, yes it is time to swing into action. I have worked a bit with web designers. Usually this is what happens (at least a method I found useful to get started rather than have nothing at all):

1. We need a web site
2. This is not a corporate web site but one for the orpahns of Kaondo Kenya
3. Next we have more or less decided on what the web site is for
4. We even have a "proto" design
5. Now we should name the website and provide a title and decide on the links required.
6. Before this we should register the domain name (name of web site) and also buy some server space (to store the files etc) and get editing rights, etc
7. Meanwhile we should decide the details such as hyper links - usual practice is to have something like this:

About us | Kabondo orphans | Blogs | Help an orphan | Mission and Vision | Training Kabondo youth | Contact us | News | Register

8. Soon as the links are decided it is up to the web designer to provide a few sample designs from which we could choose. Of course it is critical to tell the web designer about the content that would change frequently, the sections where photos would be uploaded and the details of registrations (this means administrative rights and databses etc)
9. By then it becomes obvious and everyone starts giving their ideas :-)

So can we start working on the links and register the domain name?

Regards
Giri

Mon, 2008/01/28 - 22:26

Hello Giri,

Glad to see you back! We have started moving forward and are working on putting together the site. For the navigation bar we have:

Home, About Us, News and Updates, How You Can Help, Blogspot and Join Our Mailing list. There are subcategories below as well.

We are looking at setting up a CMS so that the text and photos can be added by someone on the ground.

We are also putting together some samples that we can put forward to choose from.

As far as domain name, yes we can register. I think the name chosen is kabondopoverty.org. I believe it is available. Since the implementing organization in Kabondo is the Kabondo Poverty Alleviation Organization it was felt that it would be good to focus on this. Furthermore, while the primary focus is the orphans, the approach to address their needs goes beyond them. To address the situation of the orphans, one must look at other factors such as the situation of the guardians, the overall conditions and situation in the community, and so forth.

A number of offers have been put forward for registering the domain name and hosting the site. Just have to make some decisions!

Best wishes,
Barb

Tue, 2008/01/29 - 01:22

If we're going to use the CMS I'm currently translating, we will need shell access to the server. That's something to consider when ordering some webhosting. As I already offered, I have a webserver running all the time for all my other CMS sites. I'm willing to just add it for free, but you don't have too. Just a proposal.

Furthermore I'm busy doing some prototype design, as Kent and Barb did already. I'm sure not everyone will like it, but that's not my main concern. I'm changing colours all the time, because we can't be sure what the community likes untill we heard from them. But till then, I'd like any opinion from Nabuur-members - Currently I use the colors RED and (dark)GRAY as colours in the header. I'd like to add another color to cheer things up. So as Barb suggested, green would be nice because of the color itself, and these colours reflects the colours of the Kenyan flag.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afbeelding:Flag_of_Kenya.svg

Any other color can be used too. When Barb releases some concepts I think it's possible to imagine what colour you would like.

Tue, 2008/01/29 - 04:08

Hi Robert and everyone,

Feel free to post what you have so far, if you are ready to do so.

Kent, maybe you can post the structure one you have been working on?

I have put some together as well, but they are still in need of work. I should mention, the photos are actually from Kyomya, Uganda (see Kyomya village on Nabuur) - they are just markers and will not be used in the actual finished product. I had them on my computer and needed something to work with, as I don't have any from Kabondo. The person taking the photos sent them to me to use on Kyomya materials (if anyone was wondering).

I will post them as soon as I have a chance.

Barb

Sun, 2008/02/24 - 08:37

Hello Everyone,

Things have been quiet here lately. Robert, any progress? How can we help move things along?

Barb

Sun, 2008/02/24 - 09:11

Hello Barb,

You and Eric have turned this project into one of the best www.nabuur.com online village projects - you are doing a great job: and you are moving the project along at a really decent pace. So...RELAX! :)

You are easily one of the very best of www.nabuur.com's online facilitators - and we all admire your work ethic and your tremendous rate of work: SO... RELAX, Barb. Its Sunday!!!!!

Warmest regards,
Kofi.

Sun, 2008/02/24 - 18:23

Thanks Kofi!

I had to laugh because I guess I am a person that just goes and goes when I have the time. If I stop it's hard to get back into things. :lol:

Barb

Mon, 2008/02/25 - 13:35

Bless you Barb!

I am exactly the same - that is the trouble about being a "multi-tasker": you never stop!!!

I flit in and out of different things: like now I am writing this to you: whiles in the midst of editing other people's writing; thinking about an article I'll have to submit soon, for my regular columns, in a couple of newspapers here (The insight and The Network Herald!); linking up with travel industry contacts online; mulling over problems associated with family farming ventures; and thinking of my dear son and daughter (and two grandsons), in faraway London!

The list is endless! But we wouldn't have it any other way, would we, Barb? Well, keep up the good work, Barb - and do have a smashing day, today!!!

Warmest regards,

Kofi.