DAG Nova Blog

Work in community organizations is an ongoing struggle for funds, resources and technologies. Randomly available funds for web development, online campaigns or mobilization, do not buy enough time for initiatives to grow holistically, nor for staff and volunteers to acquire the needed skills to run those projects themselves. Many projects end up being  overpriced, more complex than needed and literally high-jacked by external professionals. Many projects that carry a spark to shed light on social problems or capacity building resources already existing withing communities have been dealt in simple terms of web design. Once the web site is on, it is mistaken for a goal accomplished and the rich process of wider community development is  interrupted.

DAG Nova, as a collective of individuals, organizations and hopefully whole communities,  is looking for ways to invest more time, resources and available technologies to support that process.

Staff and volunteers gaining skills and autonomy in running their projects on the web; organizations being authentic in what they work for; and communities deciding what would benefit them most; those are the values at the core of the COMMUNITY WEB DEVELOPMENT.

Recently, a very inspiring men, Marc Langlois, has reminded me that social facilitators are bound to be social entrepreneurs. Only if we work toward our own autonomy and authenticity, through passion and common good vision, we can be truly supportive of others.

Social entrepreneuring — the practice of creating a business with a mission to provide goods or services to people in need at a lower cost or with greater efficiency than any traditional company can — has never been as important in society as it is now. Naveen Jain

After more than a decade of community development work and five years in web development and training, we wish to reach out to more organizations that have recognized the need to adopt the new technologies to fulfill their mission. Under this theme of community web development, this blog will :

• keep you updated on the basics of web-based technologies
• share experiences of organizations and initiatives that adopted web-based tool to shape their projects
• offer online learning capsules relative to your training needs
• publish contributions from collaborators in community web development

With your interest, projects and contributions, we hope that this self-support network will grow on the fertile ground of free and open source technologies.