In a quest to enable change within her community, and specifically within the Cambridge, Massachusetts school district, my client requested a website that would reflect her vision and serve a diverse community, but more importantly, be friendly and inviting, and easy to use as she makes her bid for a run for the Cambridge School Committee.

Having collaborated with the client previously on a highly successful online project (The Sakya Tradition), it was exciting to assist her on another worthwhile endeavor in the quest to not only educate, but to initiate positive change proactively. My role on this project was to enable a complete website from start to finish, incorporating styling that matched her aesthetic and mission, and could live on after the election cycle.

What Does an Excellent Education Look Like?

It Starts by Speaking to a Constituency in Their Own Language.
Accessible with Just One Click.

Change Starts with The Simplest Things

With the onset of an upcoming election for the School Committee in Cambridge, Massachusetts, my client, who was contemplating her run, needed a website to communicate her platform, her beliefs, and a forum to help educate and share with others like her who were struggling to make change to an education system from the “outside”.

The goal was to create a site that was inviting, warm, friendly, and easily accessible to everyone in her community. A site in which she could post not only her candidacy, but also offer her experience, news, stories, or things she’s learned from her experience as a mother navigating the education of her two children. A site that could live on and be viable, no matter the election outcome.

VIEW THE WEBSITE

Global Vision, Local Commitment

The resulting site may seem deceptively simple: a Homepage, About, News & Insights, and of course, Getting Involved. But it’s the simple things that make this site so powerful. Use of WordPress enables the client to upload her content quickly and easily, assigning it to appropriate categories or tags, giving visitors the ability to filter and find information relevant to them. A clean, approachable site with more of a neighbor-to-neighbor feel, instilling a feeling of trust, instead of that of a heavy-handed “Campaign” site that you so often see. A fresh online platform to reach out with global experience and understanding, yet with a local, honest commitment to the Cambridge community.

Building Community & Removing Barriers

In her pursuit to “Change from Within” and reduce the barriers encountered in seeking a public education, the subtlest capability of the site is the most powerful and rewarding. With a simple click of the mouse, users can access and understand all of the site’s content in their own language. Translated into eight different languages that make up the constituency of Cambridge, Massachusetts (Amharic, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, Modern Chinese, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Spanish, and, of course, English), the site begins the process of building community and connection right from the start.