Girls Learning to Code

"Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope.

Hope breeds peace."

- Confucious

Confucious' quote is appropriate for today's blog post. TVL strives to provide technology powered education with the end goal of improving economic development in the rural villages of Sierra Leone. We hope the educational opportunities we bring to Sierra Leone will breed confidence and hope in the people to build up their own country with creative solutions and innovations so they do not have to always rely on outside support.

In late 2015 Toptal, a network of the best freelance software engineers and designers in the world, brought to our attention two things:

1. Women make up around just 16% of the engineering workforce in the technology industry. The gap is even larger when you look at Open Source, with women making up just 6% of users on GitHub.
2. They have a scholarship program geared towards encouraging women and girls all over the world to learn how to code.

After learning this we felt compelled to bring this opportunity to Sierra Leone. So we began to put the gears in motion for a "Learn to Code" class for girls ages 13 - 18 with the option to apply for the Toptal scholarship at the end of the course. We've partnered with a local Silicon Valley coding guru, Janet Major, to help create a 7 week long course curriculum for the girls of Bumpe and Golu. Janet has been working in the computer industry for more than 30 years. She writes books about how to use hardware and software. The "Girls Who Code" movement has inspired her to get involved and help teach the younger generations about computer science. After months of planning we are ready to launch our first class on April 11th.

Our 7 week course will be taught in conjunction by Janet and our local partner, a Sierra Leonean nonprofit, Global Education and Justice Network. The course will use the book Teach Your Kids To Code as the text book and will be highly interactive with fun games that teach them how to code using Python.

Stay connected with us on Facebook to learn about updates as our program roles out.

We've been busy in 2016

We kicked off the new year in Sierra Leone and we were incredibly busy!

We went on this trip with the intention of expanding the digital library in Golu and starting the process to bring free internet into to Golu and the surrounding villages to leverage for educational purposes. What we ended up accomplishing in our 10 days, was much more than planned. Check it out!

• Participated, presented to and mentored a group of young, ambitious entrepreneurial minded individuals from Golu at the Global Social Business Institute (GSBI) Boost Accelerator in Freetown.
• Brought 10 new educational tablets to Golu's resource center digital library with expanded resources focusing on the primary age group.
• Taught the teachers and high school seniors of Golu, how to use the new tablets and access the wealth of educational resources.
• Provided solar to the country's only all girls boarding school so that 450+ students will now have light to study in the evenings with.
• Met with major National Telco's to begin discussions on partnering to build a tower that will eventually provide internet to Golu and 6 surrounding villages.

READ MORE>>

We are now working with the Golu school headmaster and our partners in digital literacy to incorporate computer science as part of the schools curriculum this semester. Stayed tuned to learn more about this program.

If you would like to make a contribution to our on-going programs you can do so here: <<DONATE>>

Back from Sierra Leone!

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After a two weeks in Sierra Leone we are back in the Bay Area and finally adjusted to pacific standard time. We had a wonderfully successful trip and lots of work ahead of us. Stay connected with us on Facebook for periodic updates and check back on our website for a summary of all our activities, adventures and more!

Cheers,

Colleen & RoseAnn

Finally! We're back in Golu...Installing the digital library.

After a long year of battling Ebola, Sierra Leone is just over two weeks since the last reported Ebola case. They have started the 42 day countdown to be declared an Ebola free country. Fingers crossed things stay on track. Since the country is on the mend we are now able to get back to Salone and continue our work. Our last visit to Sierra Leone was almost two years ago and now we're back in town to install Golu's first ever solar powered digital library! This library will provide access to free educational resources for the whole village and surrounding villages.

Take a look at the library so far. It consists of a solar powered custom made server that is preloaded with online content that will be updated on a monthly basis and 3 solar powered custom made desktop computers. Thanks LamTech for your expertise and installation!

TVL is bringing free education to Golu, Sierra Leone!

After a long and hard year of battling Ebola, Sierra Leone is still working tirelessly to put the pieces of it's already fragile healthcare system, education system and economy back together. People are back to work but the lasting effects of Ebola are still very much present. There are more orphan's and teenage pregnancies than before and the local businesses are struggling to recoup lost revenues. During the height of the Ebola outbreak, TVL knew that the community we work in - Golu - really needed something to keep a sense of normalcy while things were anything but. So we proposed to the community committee an education program that would provide 300 children out of school with a daily obligation to lessons. On March 1st we launched our Radio Education & Tutoring Program. We provided 100 radios and 300 school supply kits so that the children could take advantage of the broadcasted school lessons that the Ministry of Education and UNICEF put on in place of schools being closed. In addition to this we hired 4 volunteer teachers from the community and provided a monthly stipend for them to help and tutor the children on their lessons. Furthermore, we wanted to encourage attendance and we were able to keep an average weekly attendance around 80% by providing incentives in the form of biscuits for the children.

Even though Ebola is still lingering in the country we are moving forward with our plans to install a digital library into the community resource center in Golu. TVL is headed back to Golu this August to begin the final phase of our Project Golu - providing access to free education. We have already purchased the digital library but we are still collecting donations to go towards more computers and tablets. If you would like to make a contribution towards free education in Golu you can do so here. TVL will also accept hardware donations. If you are upgrading your laptop or tablet you can make a donation to TVL by getting in touch with us at info@thevillagelink.org.

We'll keep you posted on our progress as we countdown the days until we leave and during our trip. Stay tuned for more!

Cheers,

The Village Link Team