In the spirit of Nelson Mandela month, coding organisation GirlCode has appealed to companies and individuals across SA to donate laptops, which will be used by its girl coders.
This as COVID-19 restrictions, over the past year, made it difficult for the organisation to host most of its training programmes, which are in-person in nature.
GirlCode says it has identified 67 young ladies from the organisation who are in need of laptops to resume their coding learning and practices.
CEO Zandile Mkwanazi explains: “COVID-19 restrictions have had an adverse impact on most of us in one way or the other, and for GirlCode it resulted to setbacks with facilitating our activities as they require physical gatherings.
“This also has shown us that by not going into communities to conduct our programmes, it becomes more difficult to get young people to participate, and this is purely based on our learners not having their own tools and resources to practise our programmes.”
Adds Mkwanazi: “Most companies/organisations replace their laptops annually, and we would like to appeal to these organisations, as well as individuals who have spare laptops at their disposal, to please donate the laptops to us for the purpose of reusing them and sharing coding skills with the youth.”
Established in 2013, GirlCode is a registered non-profit organisation aimed at empowering young girls and women through technology.
Over the years, GirlCode has provided coding training to over 62 000 girls and young women across the country through the Gircoder club, an online coding bootcamp and hackathons.
Through these initiatives, the organisation says many young girls have been given an opportunity to develop their skills in software development and exposure to other careers in STEM.
“One of our key visions is to see GirlCode impacting over 10 million young people across Africa over the next 10 years, and one day becoming an institution of choice for females who are interested in STEM and digital technology,” Mkwanazi notes.
To make contributions, contact Mkwanazi via e-mail at sponsor@girlcode.co.za.
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