Our team wanted to focus on the topic of gender equality in regards to sexual assault. We had been inspired by the idea of creating a unique service that we found many other resources for sexual assault survivors did not offer. Our idea was to provide temporary housing for sexual assault survivors that may want to leave their current living situation into a more safe and supportive environment.
YouEmpower allows sexual assault survivors to apply for temporary housing with other survivors. Volunteer survivors apply online to offer their home as a safe and supportive environment. When sexual assault survivors apply for temporary housing, the organization matches them with an appropriate volunteer.
Our team had basic knowledge in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We decided to build a website to provide this service. We started by programming a one-page site from scratch, but eventually decided to start with a Bootstrap template.
Our first challenge was narrowing down our ideas to a concise, simple subject. We found our ideas were becoming too complex but once we narrowed it down we were able to create a more direct project. We also came across the challenge of learning Bootstrap. We had no idea where to start leading us to create a site from scratch. We then decided to use a Bootstrap template, however, it required us to learn the basics of a new language on the go.
We are proud of building an empowering site for sexual assault survivors of all genders. Even with our limited knowledge.
We learned that we should start with a simple and concise idea before adding to it. We discovered that our project came together much faster when we simplified our goal and made a clearly defined plan of action.
The next step would be to add a blog aspect to the site where a sexual assault survivor can record any thoughts and feelings they may have. They will have the option to post it privately, but will also have the option to post it publicly later on. We believe having survivors share with other survivors can be very empowering.