Gyaan Yatra is an initiative of the Asian Foundation for Philanthropy, designed to animate debate and understanding of development issues as a way of raising awareness. And as part of this work it also cultivates a group of development ambassadors, young people who are involved in AFP's development leadership scheme. Now translating all of that into requirements for the website meant coming up with a structure that could provide:

  • clearly labelled  background and news on global issues
  • simple user-engagement tools for people coming to the site, wanting to ask questions, discuss issues and ideas
  • regular updates by email for visitors
  • useful networking  spaces for development ambassadors to learn and gain from each other's ideas and experiences

The site we built is brimming with opportunities for interactivity from a comment box on news stories, to discussion forums, to a notice board and instant messaging system for DAs. This makes sure that the site is kept alive not just by its dynamic team of GY staff, but by its readers too. Coupling all that with a cleverly customised version of Drupal's notifications system, there's also an automated mailout of new content listings to anyone who wants to subscribe.