We are very proud and happy to be training the next generation of coders, and we would love to have your help with some of costs that we incur. Our sessions are totally free to our kids and we want to set them up with the best learning infrastructure which unfortunately is not free.
One day, after reading yet another news article about the struggle faced by young African Americans in the education system and how it impacted their chances of entering the workforce, I’ve had enough. There had to be something that me, a mother of two beautiful black children, could do to empower our youth and give them the skills needed to become productive and entrepreneurial. The answer was looking at me in the form of my husband, a Front End Developer with years of experience in programming:
Why don’t we teach our kids how to code?
After getting him on board, which did not take long, we reached out to our friends and family in the summer of 2015 and started KidKoders as an informal Saturday workshop meant to introduce kids to the world of programming. With the help of daycare owner, Rose Koech, and her database administrator husband, Tom Olewa, who hosted us in their home and provided us with the Internet access needed, we used the Hour of Code website to introduce and guide a growing number of students, as young as 4 and as old as 17 years, to the world of coding. The turnout went beyond our expectations and when we finished our last summer session in August we had gathered over 20 students, with girls making about half of our attendees.
Outside of block based programming practice, we’ve also discussed our own personal careers in STEM, and our goal, which we think we attained with this session, was really to open their minds to the idea of coding, to make them understand that this was something that THEY CAN DO, and for those who are inclined to it, that coding was not only an attainable career choice, but will also put them in position to become the ENTREPRENEURS and JOB CREATORS of tomorrow. The feedback from parents and kids has been absolutely positive and for us personally, it has been very gratifying to see the light come in their eyes, the sense of pride they get from their accomplishments and above all, to know that we’re helping them make solid choices about their future.
We decided that we needed to push this further and reach out to more kids in our community and go beyond just the word of mouth and this is where you come in. Our biggest pain points during classes were:
· Some of our students did not have personal laptops and had to use old slow laptops to get their work done.
· As the classes got bigger, the internet slowed down, even at some points kicking some students off.
· Space got tighter and tighter, which was great for spirit, but not too comfortable for our older students
With your help, we’re hoping to raise enough funds to be able to provider our students with:
· Chromebooks for the duration of the class for those that need them
· Reliable, steady and fast Internet access
· Dedicated comfortable learning environment
Cliches are cliches for a reason, they are somehow true so here we go for ours: Every dollar helps. And every dollar you will give here will go a long way. We remain dedicated to our mission, which is to bring up the front end engineers, backend developers, graphic designers, database administrators, CEO and CTOs of tomorrow and it is not a matter of “if”, it is already happening and your contribution is helping spread the impact.
Thank you from us, and our kid koders!!!
