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Tuesday, 12 April 2005 | Levent OZLER
Art Students Showcase Web Design Skills
From Sunrise to Sunset, Design Students Build Web Sites For Deserving Non-Profit Organizations
It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes hundreds of student volunteers to raise Web sites for community-based non-profits as part of The Art Institutes' Annual National Webraising event.
To help celebrate National Volunteer Month, interactive media design students from Art Institutes across the U.S. will raise Web sites for non-profit organizations and go live with launches on Monday, April 18, 2005.
Art Institutes participating in this year's event include schools located in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Brookline, MA, Phoenix, Portland, Dallas, Orange County, California, San Diego and York, PA.
Based on the Amish concept of a barnraising, a Webraising demonstrates the power of neighbor helping neighbor as students aid local, community-based non-profit organizations by creating Web sites, or in some cases, re-launching existing sites to improve appearance and function.
Dr. Ameeta Jadav, department chair for Interactive Media Design at The Art Institute of Atlanta, originated the first Webraising event and is the spokesperson for the national effort. According to Jadav, "Web sites are as important to the world of non-profits as to the business world. They make it possible for the non-profit to fulfill its mission more effectively by bringing the message to a broader audience."
In addition to creating Web sites from scratch, several organizations involved in this year's effort will get help to re-launch their sites, making them more effective marketing tools.
"Today's digital society demands that non-profits have as sophisticated Web sites as their corporate peers," says Jadav. "It is just as important that these sites be easy and pleasant to use. Our students provide these organizations with a launching pad for their web presence -- something many non-profits would be unable to achieve based on their limited staffs and financial resources," she says.
In addition to helping out non-profits, student volunteers have an opportunity to get real world work experience, including participating in client meetings, planning budgets and making deadlines.
For some students, this is their first volunteer effort, and that, says Jadav, is one of the most important objectives in the Webraising effort. "We encourage our students to stay connected to the organization, and many continue to volunteer their time long after the project has ended," she says.
Last year, over 5,000 students from The Art Institutes donated more than 250,000 hours of volunteer work. Art Institutes volunteer efforts are detailed in The Common Thread http://www.artinstitutes.edu/common
The Art Institutes system of 31 education institutions is located throughout North America, providing an important source of design, media arts, fashion and culinary professionals. The Art Institutes system of schools has provided career-oriented education programs for 40 years. For more information visit The Art Institutes website at http://www.artinstitutes.edu/nz
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