Our mission here at Mowgli is to help businesses and organizations improve their online presence, solidify their brand, and grow sustainably over the long term. Working on projects that can truly make a difference in the world is our priority, even when it doesn’t equal large profits. This is why, as part of our corporate social responsibility program, we decided to volunteer in building Leublora Green Village’s new website, allowing them to expand their network of contacts, promote their activity and events, and reach a wider audience to collect donations to build a new village in East Timor. A village designed to empower women, children, and youth.
It has been a few years since we decided to include a social responsibility project in our yearly budget. We couldn’t be more satisfied with the results. Starting from our early days as a digital agency, we have worked with a variety of different businesses with different needs, from small organisations looking for solutions to make themselves known to Fortune 500 companies willing to invest to establish their brand even further. While we were helping businesses increase their revenue, we realised that also non-profit organisations could benefit from our services.
We decided to launch a Corporate Social Responsibility program to provide entities that do good to the world using? the digital tools necessary to spread their message. Non-profit organisations and NGOs, especially if they are small in size, often cannot afford to set aside a budget to build an online presence. Being able to connect with people through digital platforms is essential in this day and age, but for these organisations, it is often not possible to invest in marketing. Resources are scarce and tackling social, environmental, or economic issues has the priority – rightly so.
Every year the Mowgli team selects one project to support with their services free of charge. Whether it is developing social impact websites, setting up an awareness campaign, or solving technical issues, we assist organisations we believe in, at our expense.
Leublora Green Village (LGV) is a legally registered non-profit organization established near the town of Maubisse is East Timor. The NGO addresses social, economic, and environmental issues that affect the country. They try to offer work and education opportunities to women, children, and young adults. LGV’s mission is to empower these people, allowing them to become change agents in their local communities, and working toward the improvement of everyone’s living conditions.
East Timor, or Timor Leste, is one of the poorest countries in South East Asia. Basic infrastructure is still lacking and it can be difficult for NGOs to obtain funding to improve the situation. Despite the bureaucratic obstacles, LGV has succeeded in setting up the Leublora Green School, a social development and environmental educational centre in Maubisse, where kids can study free of charge. The organisation has also created the Women’s Organic Farming Cooperative, the Leublora Green Villas and an Organic Restaurant that employs members of the local community.
All of LGV’s projects aspire to become a source of sustainable change in East Timor by offering opportunities to marginalized groups, allowing them to become independent individuals striving for a better future.
"Our work experience with Mowgli was extremely positive and highly professional. We needed to develop a simple website for Leublora Green village and we got connected with this highly talented group at Ubud Hub. This resulted in a beautifully crafted professional website, admired by many of our partners. On completion we were even given a handover and orientation to manage it."
When we took on this project last year, Leublora Green Village had already been operating for a couple of years, but they were missing a website that would provide digital accessibility and could promote their work and collect donations internationally. We agreed to dedicate a few months of our time and part of our team to build Leublora Green Village’s new website, allowing them to present their projects to a wider audience.
The website we designed was created in WordPress, in a way that the people at LGV would be able to manage it autonomously once we finished. Thanks to a simple interface they would be able to add new posts to the news sections and make small design changes whenever necessary without the need of an expert.
We first prepared a wireframe based on their request and a series of mockups for LGV to approve. They required a page that would tell the story of the organisation, one to present the products on sale at the cooperative, and a contact form for visitors who wanted to get in touch in case they wanted to make a donation.
Once we had a clear idea of how to develop the site we helped with setting up the domain, creating the content and images for each section, and guiding the team at LGV through the back-end. The process took a couple of months from start to finish and, at the end, LGV was very pleased with the result.
Our free video audit will take a look at your website and the UX-design of your website. We will send you a short video with an analysis from one of our talented team-members.
“In today's world digital presence is absolutely necessary. It helps in sharing our vision and activities with the outside world. NGOs like us need digital spaces to share our innovative ideas and green solutions. We live in a remote country not much known to the outside world. This digital space provides us an opportunity to make our presence felt.”
Leublora Green Village is still going strong today and thanks to their new website they are able to communicate with the world the steps they are taking to improve East Timor’s rural communities. The Women’s Organic Farming Cooperative has set up a shop where they sell flowers, strawberries, and organic vegetables grown in the farm. The Green Villas and Organic Restaurant have also expanded, opening their doors to a slow stream of tourists that is now starting to reach East Timor.
Bella Galhos, one of the two founders, has now been featured on National Geographic in a video depicting her life-long efforts to improve women’s and children’s living conditions in East Timor.
“In 2021, we would hope to revive our green activities at green school, receive more tourists to stay in our place, and rejuvenate our green garden, hence be able to give a decent salary to our staff.”
Are you an NGO in need of technical assistance or simply curious about what our corporate social responsibility program is all about? Get in touch today and let’s talk about your project!
