Inspiration
Personally, when we walk down the streets of New York City, it is inevitable that we will catch a glimpse of a homeless individual going about their daily routine. It is really heartbreaking to see other human beings live such lives that do not offer the same circumstances to reach for their dreams in life. Then, once Josh Lafazan, the legislator of district 18, mentioned the shocking statistics of the level of homeless children in United States, we were moved to take action. There are 1.2 million students who are homeless in the US right now, as well as a general increase of homelessness as of 2018. If nothing is done, the number will only increase from now on. Everyone deserves the same right to be educated and children all around the world are being held from this right because of their lack of a home. Sometimes, the cause of homelessness was not something that these children had control over. Thus, we decided make a website that would spread knowledge about the reality of how serious this problem is as well as organize information simply so that children will have a comfortable environment to learn in.
What it does
Our website offers multiple resources for temporary shelters, places to get food and materials, and companies to call for mental support. We have organized the information in a very efficient and easy way to comprehend. We understand that homeless people do not have the same resources that we have and we need to help make it easier for them to find ways to overcome challenges that being homeless can create.
How we built it
We used Github to make it easier to work together to code in HTML, Javscript, and CSS. We attended the workshop that Teens LI team offered on making a personal website and we used online sources such as w3schools to further elaborate on how to carry through with certain actions.
Challenges we ran into
Prior to this event, we did not have much experience coding in HTML, Javascript, and CSS. We only were familiar with java which is not sufficient to creating a website.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are extremely proud of being able to format the website the way we wanted to despite the confusions within coding the page. We are also very proud of being able to design a visually pleasing logo and to make the information illustrated on the website as compact and easy to understand as possible. Lastly, we are very proud of being able to research various different companies and organizing the information to correlate with one each other well.
What we learned
Through our research, we learned so much about the homeless youth community and the different resources that they have access to in today's world. We learned what more there is needed to do to help this cause as well as how many people around the world who support this problem. In addition, we learned the basics of coding in HTML, Javascript, and CSS which is very important for future constructions of public awareness.
What's next for Homeless Youth
After the publication of the website itself, we would like to start our own official company where the fundraising would go to a concrete cause. In addition, we want to add more features to this prototype. For example, we would like to expand out database to many more companies and resources, providing a large variety of opportunities for homeless youths around the world. We would also like to create a login page where there would be a way to create a large community focused on this cause.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.