Cesta von – Helping those who need it

How we started

GoodRequest kindness

At GoodRequest, we recognize that we are more fortunate than many others. However, there are many people who face existential problems, live in poverty, in unsuitable conditions or live in excluded communities. Therefore, we take it as a certain form of responsibility to help these people.

As part of Kindness activities, our support is financial, material or professional - especially in the field of education, community development and unpopular topics that need to be talked about and acted upon. More than a year ago, we listened to the podcast Doomed to failure, where Cesta von board member and journalist Zuzana Kovačič Hanzelová addresses the topic of excluded communities and the work of “Omama”. We really liked the organization and its message, and we knew right away that we wanted to support the initiative in the most meaningful way possible.

Cesta Von civic association and the Omama program

The mission of the Cesta von association is to help people who have been on the verge of poverty, help them to stand on their own feet, get a job and a dignified life. The mission of CA is to strengthen the position of socially disadvantaged individuals of all age categories by developing their potential and strengthening their personal, social, material resources and skills. They achieve this goal through various services and initiatives, including consulting, education, social and publishing activities, international cooperation and event organization.

Their most famous project is the Omama project, which focuses on supporting the healthy development of Roma children living in generational poverty during the most critical period in a child's life (0-3 years). The Omama project provides early care in the form of home visits from Omamas, who help mothers from poor communities to properly develop their children since birth. In this way, children get on the right track and have a foundation to build on in the future. The project currently operates in 31 communities.

Our help

Before we help any organization at GoodRequest, we connect with its representatives and together we find the best form of help. After talking with the coordinator of the Cesta von project, we found out that they would appreciate help precisely in the areas in which we know best - technology and design. Although they tried to do many things themselves, they were not satisfied with the result, and their biggest problem was an outdated and confusing website, which they wanted to change, but did not have enough capacity to do so. They realized that their current website is cluttered with content and can be confusing for potential donors, leaving them unclear about how they can support the association. That's why we decided that the best form of help is creating a new website.

Since it was Christmas time, we decided to support the association materially. Many of our colleagues brought toys, others helped financially.

Design part

We've started with a Workshop

At the beginning of the cooperation, together with the team from Cesta Von, we organized a day-long workshop. We looked at the vision, mission and goals of the CA, and devoted most of the workshop time to 4 main characters - Big Donors, Small Donors, Activists and the public. The goal was to find out who our user is, what their needs are, how we can help them with the new website. At the end of the workshop, we defined the Value proposition Canvas where we looked at the common Goals, Problems and Results of the four mentioned persons.

The result of the Workshop was mutual understanding of cooperation, concretization of the problems we want to solve and definition of individual goals.

We've defined the Information Architecture

Since the civic association Cesta von consists of several programs, organizes events, offers various forms of support or writes articles and stories for people, easy and clear navigation is the basis of the success of the new website.
That's why we decided to create wireframes before the design phase. This phase helped us clearly define the layout and arrangement of individual elements without affecting visual details such as colors or typography. We also quickly and efficiently experimented with different concepts, removed unnecessary details and focused on the basic elements of the design. In addition, wireframes helped us get feedback in the early stages of the project.

New visual identity

The way out did not have a clearly defined and consistent visual identity. Therefore, it was necessary to help create a new one that reflects the original one, but we brought new life and imagination into it.

When defining the new visual identity, we wanted to emphasize the mission of CA - helping Roma children. The identity reflects their playfulness, joy of life and childlike curiosity. We brought a new color, cartoon elements and new typography. At the same time, however, we tried to include the seriousness and importance of their mission in the field of helping Roma children and their families.

Overall, we tried to create a visual identity that would be cheerful, understandable and easily identifiable with the Cesta von organization. We believe that this new identity will help the organization better communicate its message and goals to the public, and at the same time help raise awareness of the importance of helping Roma children and their families.

Final design

After defining the visual identity, we started to create the final design. In this phase, we regularly communicated with the client and took into account their opinions and comments. We kept in mind the goals of CA, as well as our cooperation with them.

We have created a simple, clear and intuitive website that provides visitors with information about the activities of the organization, its mission and goals. At the same time, we wanted it to non-violently provide a variety of ways to help.

When creating the final design, we were consistent with the association's new visual identity. We wanted it to reflect a child's playfulness, but at the same time look professional. It was also supposed to preserve the special charm of the Cesta von organization and its focus on helping Roma children and their families.

Development: simple content management is paramount

Our friends from Žilina's digital agency Inoby, who covered the development of the website, also helped. One of the key requirements was for administrators to be able to edit the website effortlessly and without having to involve developers in the process. For this reason, the website was built on WordPress. This solution allows administrators to update and manage content as they see fit, giving them full control over the site.

The future of CA Cesta von

We are very proud that we could help the Cesta von organization either materially or with our expertise. It is wonderful to see how this organization continues to grow and create new programs and activities. Their efforts to help people who are having a hard time in life is truly incredible and inspiring. We believe that thanks to our help, their work will be more appreciated and that their achievements will continue to grow, so that they can help even more people and give them a chance for a new beginning.