New website for Seychelles’ Civil Society

Victoria, 22nd October 2008 - The Civil Society of Seychelles under the auspices of Liaison Unit of Non-Governmental Organisations Seychelles (LUNGOS) will benefit through a new website, thanks to a grant from the European Union (EU). The development of the website is part of LUNGOS’ mission to provide an effective information exchange portal to facilitate communication between the various local NGOs and international stakeholders.

LUNGOS provides a framework for NGOs and Civil Society in Seychelles. This is a basis for collaborative partnerships, amongst citizens. LUNGOS works with and for civil society, i.e: NGOs and the voluntary sector. LUNGOS has the community at heart and creates partnerships with those that share the same intent. The role of LUNGOS within the restructuring of the economic environment in Seychelles will be crucial.

“The website will serve as a reference for donors, international organisations and other stakeholders that want to engage with the Civil Society Sector in Seychelles. It is anticipated that through the increased visibility, local NGOs will be better able to forge partnership and enhance networking with local stakeholders and international bodies whilst disseminating information about the work of NGOs in Seychelles.” said the Executive Director of LUNGOS, Mr. Steve Lalande, upon signing of the agreement.

Once completed, the website will feature comprehensive information on the involvement of Civil Society in Seychelles; a directory of local NGOs and a pool of useful resource materials amongst others. The contract to develop the site has been recently awarded to Switch (Pty) Ltd, a web development company based in Victoria, Seychelles.

For his part, the Marketing Manager for Switch, Mr. Hervé Chang-Yunn said “We’re happy to have the opportunity to work with LUNGOS and that they’ve entrusted us, a local company to design their new website. For the next few months we will be working in close collaboration with them to design the website, develop the search engine optimization (SEO) content and conduct training sessions for the LUNGOS personnel on how to use our Content Management System (CMS) that will power their website.”

The CMS solution that Switch will be providing LUNGOS with is based on the leading Microsoft .NET technology. It will enable LUNGOS to effectively manage content on its website, thereby having the ability to update it constantly,” added Mr. Chang-Yunn.
The Civil Society’s new website will be available early next year.

For more information, Switch can be contacted on telephone: 676000 or email: info@switch.sc.