The brief
Mali Samaj is an online platform for the Mali community, sharing news, health and fitness advice, parenting and education articles, and the stories behind festivals such as Makar Sankranti. The community wanted one place to read, share and stay connected.
The challenge
A community site lives or dies on how easy it is to publish and how pleasant it is to read. Volunteers needed to post articles without technical help, readers needed a clean layout that works on any phone, and the site had to bring people back after their first visit. The community website development brief was also to keep running costs low, using ad placements to help sustain the platform.
Our approach
We built a lightweight custom WordPress theme with a bold red Mali Samaj wordmark and a simple News, Health and Contact menu. Articles appear in a readable blog layout with large featured images, publish dates and author names, while a "Popular News" sidebar keeps readers moving to their next story. Category archives give News and Health their own landing pages, and a newsletter sign-up ("Get the best of community, directly in your inbox") turns casual readers into regular ones.
What we delivered
- Custom WordPress theme with a clean, readable article layout
- News and Health categories with archive pages and pagination
- Popular news sidebar on the homepage and on every article
- Newsletter sign-up and social sharing
- Ad placements and a cookie consent banner
- Editor-friendly publishing for community volunteers
The outcome
Mali Samaj now has a simple, sustainable community website that volunteers can update easily and readers enjoy returning to. Need community website development? Talk to our team.
