NTFP-EP’s website, www.ntfp.org, won in the Organizations Category (cause-oriented and non-profits) in the 11th Philippine Web Awards, which honors the individuals and teams behind the best Filipino-owned and developed websites. A huge thank you to the Philippine Web Awards!

Every year, hundreds of websites are nominated for all categories. This year, judges hailed from Yahoo, Multiply, Friendster and other well-known companies. www.ntfp.org was nominated in October 2008, made it into the semi-finals with eight other entries, and finally was among the five finalists in December 2008. The big win culminated in award ceremonies held last 27 February (see more on www.philippinewebawards.com).

Our virtual home

Like everything we do in the network, the site is a collaboration. We share the award with the entire network and the communities we work with. It is their voices we want heard and it is their stories that is the reason for the site’s existence. Congratulations to our web developers and web host, the i4Asia team, who has captured our vision and translated the technicalities of web development and design into our virtual home.

NTFP-EP has been working with i4Asia since 2005 when the website was first redesigned. In the next collaboration in 2006-2007, we worked together to develop various databases linked within the website. These include the NTFP profiles (accessible from the main webpage) and two databases for the exclusive use of the network, the experts database and the donor database.

“NTFP-EP is an excellent client to work with. We have worked with them from the very start. They are very articulate in what they want and they had vision and coordination which makes developing IT projects for them very pleasant. This award is as much our achievement as it is theirs. Their efforts in diligently providing updates and content has been a success factor.” – Selwyn Uy, i4Asia

The website has become crucial to NTFP-EP’s information sharing and exchange strategy. It has opened up virtual exchanges throughout the region and broadened the reach of the network’s publications. Moreover, the website is slowly becoming a virtual exchange platform and a community in itself.

Thank you to everyone for inspiring NTFP-EP’s efforts. {Aloisa Zamora-Santos}