Over 500 South African Girls Taught to Code by Vodacom through a ‘Code Like a Girl’ Training Course Program

TechInAfrica – Vodacom offers a coding training course opportunity for more than 500 girls across eight provinces in South Africa. The offer is part of its efforts to address the gender gap in digital space at an early age in the country. The program will start from today until July 15^th, 2019.

The training program allows these young girls will learn the basic knowledge of computer languages and development program such as Basic Computer and Introduction to Coding, Bootstrap, CSS, HTML, GitHub and Version control, and JavaScript.

*Over 500 South African Girls Taught to Code by Vodacom through a ‘Code Like a Girl’ Training Course Program via medium.com*

The training course program is called Code Like a Girl, aiming at teaching coding skills and life skills for young girls between 14 – 18 years old. They will be taught by influential mentors to inspire them to contribute and passionate about technology.

The Code Like a Girl program is implemented five African countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, and Tanzania. In 2019, there are over 755 young girls are trained through the program.

“In recent years, there has been significant progress in closing the global gender gap in various aspects of society. However, in many countries, including South Africa, the gap is widening in STEM careers. The Code Like A Girl program is designed to give girls an interest in a sector currently more popular with boys, helping widen their opportunities and increase their future career choices,” said Takalani Netshitenzhe, Chief Officer of Corporate Affairs at Vodacom.

*Takalani Netshitenzhe, Chief Officer of Corporate Affairs at Vodacom via itweb.co.za*

Netshitenzhe added, “For Vodacom, teaching girls how to code is the first step towards changing their outlook towards careers in STEM fields. Through this, we hope to inspire young girls to reach for the stars and pursue careers that will take Vodacom and related industries into the next digital era.”

On the last day of the course training program, each of the girls will learn how to develop her own website and demonstrate her work in front of other participants of the coding class.

The program brings 17 Vodacom Discover graduates to be the head facilitators of the program and 64 Vodacom Youth Academy Alumni members to support facilitators. Moreover, some volunteers will serve as mentors and assist learners in their educational and career growth.

Source: itnewsafrica.com