Bridge 2 U

Bridge 2 U is a platform aimed at supporting mothers in shelters that are hoping to rebuild their families' lives.

Inspiration

According to the synthetic data based on the CWI case, 65.6% of women that seek shelters, have children with them. However, roughly 71.2% of shelters either have an offsite or offer no children programs at all.

Main Problems

Mothers in these shelters face three critical challenges:

access to nutritious and filling food
finding clean, affordable clothing for their growing childern
supporting children's education, particularly when language barriers (e.g. limited English proficiency) exist

These services are often scattered across multiple sites, making them difficult to navigate, especially for women who are not digitally literate.

Our Solution

This simple, centralized platform is designed specially for mothers and their children.

Food Support: discover nearby food banks and gain access to simple, child-friendly recipes
Community Clothing Swap: exchange gently used or overgrown clothing and have access to affordable clothing and other essentials
Volunteer Support: form connections with trusted volunteers that are interesting in helping with child supervision or tutoring

How We Built It

Front-end: Visual Studio Code with HTML, JAVA, and CSS
Tools: Figma, Canva, etc.

Demo: User Flow

A physical assault victim and a mother of two is currently seeking shelter at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre.

Her child, who's in first grade, needs to catch up with their studies (i.e. specifially, with developing their English writing and reading skills).
She also needs to worry about clothing for the entire family since winter is fast approaching.
Lastly, she needs to make sure that her children are properly fed with the limited groceries that she can afford.
Figma Prototype: https://www.figma.com/design/FD0uNyM4NU8IK4B6GHobLK/YouCode-2026?node-id=0-1&t=uRM7ZcNCZT6wyk85-1

Challenges

Creating a design incorporating accessibility and simplicity with function and purpose.
Focusing on one niche adversity that women in shelters are constantly facing.