Hey folks,

Everyone involved with the Conference is doing such great work; their dedication has been very inspiring. I wanted to share how I got involved in the planning of this task, and my contributions so far.

Through my work-study job at the MU Women's Center and my role as president of Feminist Student Union, a student organization on campus, I found myself the recipient of an e-mail from our fearless leader, Paige. Before I attending the introductory meeting, I hadn't thought much about human trafficking -- in truth, I hadn't had to. But my experiences and education in social justice since coming to the University had taught me that there are myriad issues and causes that are often ignored by many. When viewed through a social justice lens, it's plain to see how the incredible and unacceptable numbers of trafficked persons affect the economy, politics, and society of every country. Please check out the Resources page of the site to find more information on Human Trafficking and other projects dedicated to ending it.

I was tapped to do the website because of my Computer Science major. The easiest and cheapest domain venue seemed to be Google -- can you go a day without Googling something anymore? The cost was $12, and in exchange you receive 2 GB of e-mail per user, up to 200 users, access to GoogleTalk, Google Calendar, and space to upload documents and spreadsheets, in addition to a web page creator.

When I started the actual writing of the page, I quickly became a bit frustrated with the restrictions of the Google Page Creator, which you're required to use. From other message boards, I found that this was a common complaint. There is no place to write straight html code, and no alternative to using Google-created templates for each page. I worked around this to the best of my ability -- full disclosure, each page has identical header and side text boxes to simulate the look of frames. If you have no previous web experience, I would suggest the Google products; creating the look of each page really was simple, and no coding is required. I was initially a little more ambitious, and found some of the restrictions a little annoying, though. Though the page serves its purpose, I am still investigating alternatives that would give me a little more freedom in content and design -- merely for vanity's sake. :)

Look for a logo coming soon. Our designer sent us three great-looking proofs, and the Steering Committee has decided on one. I'll be finding the right size for the graphic soon, and adding that to the site in the coming week, most likely.