The Give1Project Gambia's All Girls Tech Camp project received the FIRE Africa Google Award in 2016. After a trip to the IGF as part of the FIRE Award prize, Adama Jallow, Coordinator of the All Girls Tech Camp Project talks to us about the Give1Project's team's latest activities and its new project, Let Girls Code.
In recent years, the importance of programming has become a subject of increasing international awareness, and is immensely contributing to socio-economic developments in all parts of the world. Meanwhile, figures suggest that women continue to be underrepresented within traditionally tech-heavy, ICT-related roles - it is seen as not just a moral imperative. In light of this, encouraging and motivating more women to get involved in programming will be a significant opportunity for growth in today’s digital economy. And it is an essential pathway for progress on United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal No. 5: to “Achieve gender equality and empower all girls and women.”
Bridging the Divide
Give1Project Gambia is a non-profit organization led by young people and is geared towards youth capacity building and social development activities. Through this, the organisation takes up the initiative to bridge the digital divide by advocating for girls' involvement in ICT by introducing early coding and training girls how to programme at the grass roots stage. The Let Girls Code Project, part of the All Girls Tech Camp project, has been ongoing for two years now, empowering girls in both urban and rural areas.
Going Global
In December of 2016, Give1 Project Gambia's Country Coordinator attended the Internet Governance Forum IGF in Mexico to receive the Fire Africa Google Award on behalf of the organisation. You can read the report about this trip here.
The Give1 Project meets with the President of The Gambia.
Shortly, after the IGF, the team paid a courtesy call to the President of The Gambia HE Adama Barrow to present him with the Fire Africa Award, and discuss with him, among other things, about AFRINIC and the All Girls Tech Project. The IGF gave us the platform to connect with the organisers of the 2017 RighstCon conference. Give1Project was represented at the conference, with the team taking part in many sessions, including a current hot topic - Internet shutdowns across the world, especially in Africa. We also participated in many networking events. These platforms gave us the opportunity to share the work we are doing on a global platform and also learn best practices from other stakeholders in the ICT field. Participating at RightsCon inspired us to also launch an advocacy for a free and secure Internet for all Gambians. This new initiative will create a platform for all stakeholders to come together and discuss the development of the Internet in the country.
All Girl Tech Camp in Progress.
After receiving the Grant the organisation launched the "Let Girls Code" project on the 25 March 2017. The project is designed to provide training for girls and features intensive and interactive sessions for 12 consecutive weekends with the aim of introducing participants to developing Android mobile apps and other ICT skills. The sessions are laced with career talks from leading female role models in the technology sector in the Gambia and a field day, where the girls have the opportunity to visit big tech companies to gain hands on experience and witness first-hand how experts and role models work in these areas. During the training, the girls will develop an agricultural app that will help farmers enhance productivity and positively impact the economic development of our communities.
On the 2 April the Let Girls Code Project kicked off, and started registering participants with at least a diploma in IT. The training starts from 9am - 1pm every Saturday and Sunday with a 15 minute break every session; the program provides food and refreshments to the participants.
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FIRE Africa provides funds for projects, initiatives, tools and platforms that harness the power of the Internet to empower the local and regional community to solve the region’s unique online communications problems. Since we ran our pilot project in 2007 to identify innovative ICT solutions to the challenges faced by local communities, FIRE Africa has grown into a fully-fledged programme that has helped over 30 initiatives in 16 countries over the last eight years.