Business Profile: Web Site Provides Online Community for the Disabled

By Susan Regier

In only one year, SoulfulEncounters.com has evolved from a Web-based dating connection into a life-asserting online community. With chat rooms, personal profiles, and photo albums, it is best described as a cross between My Space, Face Book, and a dating site…but with a twist. It is niched for those who are physically or medically disabled – and there is nothing else like it online.

Louise Maxwell, the site’s founder and administrator, has been instrumental in drastically changing the lives of its members. With close to 2400 members before its current restructure, including lawyers, pastors, psychologists, and other professionals, the site has become a support system for the disabled by the disabled – and a support for parents of disabled children.

For one mom, the site has been instrumental is helping her teenage daughter learn appropriate behaviours toward friendships. Other members in the chat room have embraced her and are helping her to better understand her growing development with relationships and she is developing new friends who understand her. Knowing that predators or suspicious individuals will be immediately removed from the site gives the mom a sense of security as her teen grows independently.

SoulfulEncounters.com is quickly building a reputation for providing a new outlook or purpose in life as members become extended family – and many have developed friendships and romance that otherwise would not have been possible. “Louise made me feel worthy and confident…not trapped and sad,” said one member. “I have never felt so good about myself in my entire life.”

Online membership ranges from age 21 to 87 with most between 40 and 55. Maxwell takes the time to discover each person’s strengths and brings it out through chat room conversations to help build self-esteem. And she is extremely protective of her online community. Spammers and scammers are quickly identified and eliminated to protect the vulnerable members.

Maxwell worked more than twenty years in medical offices surrounded by the very ill and disabled – and she was in her comfort zone. After becoming disabled herself in her late thirties due to numerous back surgeries following a car accident, she discovered that she continually had to prove she was smart and capable. Being housebound for nearly ten years, she felt isolated…and understands the needs of the disabled community first hand. “Just because you’re physically handicapped doesn’t mean that your heart and soul are. We’re empowering people to be who they want to be,” said Maxwell.

At SoulfulEncounters.com the type of disability doesn’t matter – the important thing is that everyone is regarded as an individual with unique talents and aspirations. Maxwell recognizes this in each member and strives to make everyone feel good about themselves.

“Members form a unique community in which they feel safe, accepted, and appreciated regardless of their country of origin,” said Maxwell, “because in the hearts of the disabled, no border exists.”

Susan Regier is the publisher/editor of Networking Today and owner of Vantage One Writing, a professional writing service for businesses. (519) 471-8726 Email: susan@vantageone.ca Web site: www.vantageone.ca


Published in Networking Today, January 2008