wzeller/Kiva-for-Paralegals

Creating a website for donations to paralegal training programs in Africa. == Kiva for Paralegals This project is hosted at www.worldJustice.co. I was asked to design a prototype for a non-profit called Justice & Empowerment Initiatives (www.justempower.org). Their organization trains local citizens in Nigeria to provide paralegal services to impoverished clients. These indigent clients would otherwise have no recourse against such unfortunately frequent occurrences as wrongful eviction and police brutality. JEI wants a fundraising platform similar to Kiva (www.kiva.org). Specifically, they want a way for users to sign up, learn about paralegals, and choose one (or several) to help sponsor. Unlike traditional fundraising websites (and like Kiva), a user can sponsor a small amount of a paralegal's monthly costs -- crowdfunding for paralegals! The sponsors can then track the paralegal's progress and cases. Over time (the organization is in its early stages), the paralegals will accrue significant data about their effectiveness, which sponsors can review when choosing whom to sponsor. For a technical challenge, I cloned the look and functionality of Kiva in a (mostly) single-page app using Backbone.js to practice front-end development while using Rails to creating a database, associations and RESTful API on the backend to provide the features and store the relevant information JEI wanted. I'm continuing to work with JEI to create a website that meets their and their user's needs, including developing a form and procedure for easy entry of new paralegal data. The goal is for this platform to not only be used by JEI but potentially other organizations within a group called Namati, which train paralegals throughout Africa. Currently, the site allows users to sign up, create accounts, upload their photo, review the paralegals photos and bios, sponsor them, view their sponsors, create and join donation teams, and review their teams. Users can also see how much in total sponsorships they have outstanding, and can see on the paralegal's p …