During a volunteering session to help a local migrant shelter with the Housing Equity Club, we noticed that resources for the shelter are often geared towards opportunities for volunteers to help (or externally linked to other volunteer websites). There is a lack of resources for the migrants themselves, which is what inspired us to create this project.
This website provides information for migrants regarding legal assistance, job training, where to find food and shelter, and English learning resources, as well as for volunteers to find and keep track of opportunities to help in their local area. Volunteers need to log in to save and view sessions they've signed up for on a calendar.
We used Django and Python to create applications for the website, such as the login and register pages, as well as a preliminary model for keeping track of nonprofit organizations which can provide resources or opportunities to users. The design for each page of the page of the website was first marked up on paper and Google Slides, then implemented using HTML.
We faced obstacles with connecting the backend and frontend portions of the project, as well as getting over the learning curve for the unfamiliar tools we were learning.
We communicated openly with each other about bugs and other difficulties we ran into. Our team members offered feedback and assistance to each other throughout the project as well as during periodic discussion sessions.
Our backend members learned to use the Django web development framework, while our frontend members learned to use HTML for the first time.
We hope to get more students involved with volunteering and make information on the website more accessible for people seeking shelter through implementing translations on each page for commonly spoken languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin). We plan to add video/audio elements to make the help resources more accessible for people who may not be able to read.