SIDS New Zealand

Team:

Anthea Whittle

Media Design School, Digital Media

Hayden Hunter

Media Design School, Digital Media

Community Group:

SIDS New Zealand

Best known for Red Nose day, SIDS Work with anyone in the community affected by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, including parents and health professionals as well as friends and family.

The organisation plays both an education and a support role, offering a huge range of resources for the community and a support service with counseling and 24/7 phone support line.

SIDS is run by two incredibly dedicated volunteers, Margret Free and Sonya Palmer, who take turns running the support line, and between them offer an incredible support system for the community.

The Challenge:

SIDS had a simple one page website, and a bevy of documentation and resources to share - all sitting in their Papakura office. The handouts and factsheets were all inaccessible, though the 24/7 support phone line served them very well.

The key need for SIDS was to make their resources freely and easily available online in a manner which they could easily update and manage, and which they wouldn't need constant support to run.

The Solution

As Hayden and I were studying Digital Media, we were both capable of pulling together a website for SiDS, so during our first meeting we quizzed them on their audience and needs.

A website was the most fitting solution for the Community Group, as the sensitive nature of the issue they deal with might hold back some parents from wanting to commit to a community too soon.

We built a website on the Expression Engine CMS, our first time using the tool. The Content Management System allows the organisation to edit, add, and update content on their website independently.

Sonya's son Bryn put his hand up to help them with small pieces of maintenance to the website which couldn't be achieved solely with the CMS.

As we had two weeks for constructing our projects in 2007, our website project was particularly ambitious. You can view the live project, which is constantly used and updated by SIDS here: http://www.sids.org.nz.

Hayden also produced a new brand for SIDS, including a logo for the website and all material, and a letterhead.

The Result

An email we received from Margret once we shared the website with her really says it all.

"I have just returned from sids.org.nz. My feelings at this time are unimaginable. I am awestruck, some of these pages reduced me to tears. It was like a reverent moment. This is like a dream and it is here and live."

"What an asset!!! Each page brought memories of a SIDS person, phone call, event which contributed to the content of this project.

Everything is out there in cyberspace. We no longer have to search through boxes and files for one specific sheet. Everything has been sorted and tidied up and put into one place.

Words cannot express what I am feeling deep down."

What did your team get out of the yMedia Challenge, and why would you recommend that other people get involved?

The yMedia Challenge is a brilliant initiative, bridging the gap between education and employment and helping the community in the process. Everyone involved gets many tangible and intangible benefits.

We learned a lot about the passion and dedication volunteers in our community have for their causes, and though neither of us had experienced SiDS in our families, we were completely moved by the content we were working with.

The satisfaction of so thoroughly pleasing our very first client was reward enough for our project, though we received a brilliant response from the judges and were placed Runners up overall.

The skills we refined in the yMedia Challenge helped us to score jobs once we'd graduated, with Pamela and Adele recommending me to Terabyte Interactive as a Project Manager, and Hayden being picked up by Eventfinder as a Designer.

There really is nothing to lose in being part of the Challenge, and everything to gain.