ACCESS to CODING for Rural KIDS of ARMENIA

Coding is the new alphabet of our era. Let's help rural kids in Armenian start learning it early!

Will anyone deny that an understanding of programming languages is increasingly important in the modern world? That it’s both better and easier to learn coding skills early, and that everybody should have the opportunity to do so? This is something a lot of people have started working for in different parts of the world and we are here to do the same for kids of Armenia.

CoderDojo: the Global Network of Kid-Coders

ARIT cultural-innovative NGO from Armenia has joined the CoderDojo network settled in 108 countries with morethan 2011 programming clubs and with new Dojos starting almost every day. CoderDojo is a global movement of free, volunteer-led, -based programming clubs for young people. Within the spread across the world Dojo clubs young people aged 7-17 learn coding skills and explore technology in an informal, creative and social environment. CoderDojo encourages children to express themselves through project based learning.

CoderDojo in Armenia

About a year ago thanks to similar crowdfunding efforts we joined the network of Dojo clbs with a club in Yerevan, then had a chance to travel in the regions exploring coding for the kids of Gyumri and Vanadzor, were hosted in Dilijan and Debed, had a number of wonderful partnerships and collaborations which helped to grow ourselves and engage more kids. During the year we were able to teach coding to about 500 kids of 7-14 age group in our 150+ sessions with about 100 mentors engaged.

More Girls Are Coding

Officially representing also the Armenian chapter of Girls in Tech global network, we realize the gender issues so much common in the tech field almost everywhere in the world. In this

journey we are so proud to be able to have girls-boys ratio of about 40%-60% and to

have empowered so many young girls. We also encourage female mentors to join the program to become role-models for their girl mentees.

RESULTS and more

With this campaign we'll be able to enlarge our network to the regions and particularly to rural areas of Armenia. Currently we have some agreements with several schools in Tavush and Gegharkunik who're just waiting to host us in their premises. As a result, we'll have a vibrant and productive environment for girls and boys of 7-14 who are interested in STEM and coding particularly, where they can benefit from peer education, collaboration and open-minded approach.

The amount donated here will help us in the following:

• acquire laptops for the local clubs, including those to be used for mobile clubs initiative (CoderDojo on the spot),
• travel within Armenia to set up the clubs and train the mentors,
• cover technical and organizational costs of the trainings,
• maintain CoderDojo Armenia website and virtual resources in Armenian for being able to spread it further,
• pay for utilities and running costs of the clubs for at least a 6-month period.

HELP Us Make This Happen

Thank you very much for reading this and getting to know our project. We will be happy to get in touch and discuss things further. Please feel free to make a donation of your choice, it will anyway bring us closer to our goal.

Even if you’re not in a position to donate to this campaign, we’d appreciate a lot if you could spread the word and share to people who might be interested to support us.