Abisoye Ajayi created Pearl of Africa in Uganda and around Africa to promote self help and environmental awareness. GirlsCoding is just one of her pearls. Ajayi, who fights for the empowerment of women, came from a hard background. Her father beat her, and she ran away from home at a young age. She eventually landed an internship at a company that trains young professionals. During this time, she picked up many of the technical skills she is teaching other women today.
Source: Abovewshipers.com
Ajayi was astounded when she learned at a technology convention that only one out of around 40 people was female. In 2012 Ajayi went to schools in Ibadan and spoke to young girls about coding, and the importance of determining their interest and skill level in the subject. By 2015, she had started GirlsCoding.
Source: Abovewhispers.com
When Ajayi spoke one-on-one with girls living in slums, she found that most of them believed they were not meant to do anything besides making babies. It broke Ajayi’s heart. A big part of her program isn’t just teaching girls tech skills, but also teaching them to believe in themselves and view themselves as equals with men.
Source: Konbini.com
Ajayi partnered with the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria. She promised to focus on teaching women in under-served communities. Ajayi focused her attention initially on Makoko—a Lagos slum neighborhood where people live in extreme poverty. Most of the people Ajayi first spoke to in the town said, “nothing can spring out of these places.”
Source: Abovewhispers.com
Most of Ajayi’s pupil are girls in secondary school, but she is also instructing some young women who have completed school and lacked job prospects before entering the program. The age range is 10 to 17. One of Ajayi’s prized students is also a teacher—a young woman who teaches nursery school students verbal and quantitative reasoning.
Source: Abovewhispers.com
GirlsCoding students learn programming, animation, Raspberry Pi, and User Interface design. The program works to keep classes small, with as few as six students in some classes, and rarely more than 17. When girls have completed the program, they are set up with a female technology mentor.
Source: Techpoint.ng
As a part of her initiative, Ajayi is forging relationships with information technology companies and asking them to incorporate some of her GirlsCoding students in their corporate social responsibility program. She has placed 40 percent of her students in IT internships.
Source: Techpoint.ng
The program is expanding into orphanages in Idi Araba, location of the University of Lagos. Ajayi is a regular speaker at technology events like TechPlus2016, and she recently visited the families of her students in their former slums, showing off how far their children have come.
Source: Twitter.com
