Positive Heroes is a South African non-profit organisation which celebrates how people living with HIV can live normal lives. It aims to reduce the fear and stigma that surround HIV, by raising the profile of South Africans from a wide variety of communities who serve as role models by living positively with HIV, and to encourage people with HIV to manage their HIV and to live full and rewarding lives.
LightSpeed has built and supported the Positive Heroes website since 2008, forming the backbone of Positive Heroes’ online web presence. Positive Heroes is a cause that Ashley and the rest of the LightSpeed team feel strongly about supporting because of the difference they make. It forms part of our Corporate Social Investment, proving that even small companies can get involved.
History of LightSpeed’s involvement
Over the last few Years LightSpeed has donated time and resources in developing and supporting Positive Heroes web presence.
The current Positive Heroes website was designed in 2008 with help from an outside graphic designer, but the new redesigned site has been developed by the LightSpeed team, with a stong focus on using WordPress 3.0 features. These features include using a WordPress 3.0 Menu for the Footer navigation bar and setting up a custom post type for the easy adding and posting of Heroes to the site.
With the new design, we hope to have crafted a more effective mouthpiece for them, worthy of their cause. Some of the enhancements included widening the design to better incorporate the many projects and initiatives that Positive Heroes is involved in.
One of the focuses with the redesign was to enable and empower the users at Positive Heroes to manage content and SEO themselves, and to do it well. This becomes easy for them to do with the use of the Canvas theme from Woothemes.
Beyond the website, LightSpeed helps Positive Heroes by developing and advising on their Social Media marketing and involvement strategy. This has included the use of YouTube and Flickr accounts, Facebook and Twitter accounts, and setting up a Wikipedia entry. Positive Heroes is hosted for free on Feedmymedia, Lightspeed’s hosted WordPress Multisite System.
Corporate Social Investment has a very important role to play in modern day society, especially within the South African context. It is not charity. It is an approach in which businesses align their corporate social investment spend with their core business objectives and imperatives, forging true partnerships with beneficiaries, government and NGOs to bring about long-term sustainable development to the benefit of all. At LightSpeed we look forward to a continued partnership with Positve Heroes, a truly inspiring organization.
Happy New Year!