My YP4 project is a website connecting people with disabilities in college together so that they can share their experiences and jointly work on other activism issues. <> http://www.weconnectnow.net/Home

I believe that people with disabilities need to be involved with activism on issues beyond just disability-related matters in order to be truly powerful in society. Plus as far as I know there is no one place to go if you are a student with a disability in order to connect with each other about the college experience.

So how did I end up doing my project? When I was in high school, as a student with a disability I was always looking for resources for college students with disabilities and while there were some resources here or there, there were not a lot of them and there wasn't one place a person could go to in order to find them. So that is how I came up with my idea for my blueprint.

There were hurdles that I didn't expect when working on the website. Running out of ideas, finding I didn't have enough time to work on the website, realizing that I had no idea how to actually create a website, spending hours researching links. Then there were the purely aesthetic concerns - does this color or image on the website match with this other one? There were days when I was definitely frustrated and had to just put it aside for a while and take a break.

The best part of the blueprint was seeing the website up and running, seeing what I had imagined on paper live. The website was also created by getting practical web building skills. Having known nothing about website design beforehand, I now know at least the basics. I also helped my parents set up their Rotary Club page. It was also pretty cool interviewing people with disabilities, my frustration being that because of technical problems I lost part of some of the interviews. Looking for resources taught me to be a better researcher. All in all I am pretty happy with my website.

I have finished phase one of my website project. Now I am going to ask all of you to help me with phase two. I need to market my website and make it truly interactive, otherwise it is just a resource guide. Currently I am looking for people to blog on national issues and disability-related issues, host events focused on disability advocacy or other issues and have people share their personal stories about having a disability in college. So if you are interested or if you know someone who is, please email me at: <> <> weconnectnow2008@gmail.com<>  Also it would be great if everyone reading this blog gave me their comments regarding the website <> http://www.weconnectnow.net/Home The more constructive criticism I get the better it will be. I hope to hear from you.