African Code Week an annual continent-wide event which is intended to spark the interest of African children, teenagers and young adults in software coding. It was spearheaded by SAP in 2015 as part of its social investments to drive sustainable growth in Africa. It took place in 4 regions across Ethiopia from October 15th-23rd
Camara Education Ethiopia partnered with SAP to coordinate the implementation of Africa Code Week in East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya Tanzania and Zambia). Its target was to introduce coding to 15,000+ children and youth, empowering them with the language of software programming.
Africa Code Week utilises the program called ‘Scratch’, which was already available on the Camara learning packages implemented in schools across Ethiopia. This unique opportunity provided Camara Education with the ability to increase teacher capacity in their partnered schools by providing training to teachers on how to host coding workshops for the youth.
In preparation for the actual coding event, a Train-the-Trainer workshop was conducted for teachers during September 15 to 30, 2016.
To date, 317 teachers and University graduate students from designated primary and Secondary schools, Universities and different institutions as well from regions: Amhara, Oromia, Afar, SNNPR, Tigray and Addis Ababa, were trained by SAP professionals and Camara trainers on how to host youth coding workshops using ‘Scratch’ and web programming with the children and youth at their respective schools.
Yared Ayele, our Country Director for Camara Education Ethiopia, spoke of witnessing children for the first time writing their first line of code using Scratch software: “Seeing a smile on children’s’ faces as they discover something new and exciting is simply priceless, and the satisfaction brought by the sparkle in their eyes is enormous and truly rewarding”.