I swear I’m going to ride this good news train till the wheels fall off! For every bad news that comes out of Nigeria, for every salacious bit of scandal and gratuitous bit of gossip, the nation is bursting at the seams with people who put their best foot forward, who put their money where their mouth is and MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Step forward, Abisoye Ajayi, founder of Pearls Africa and #GirlsCoding – an IT solutions expert who had a vision to get more girls into coding and decided to work with underprivileged girls, girls who would never have had this opportunity.
GirlsCoding is an initiative from PearlsAfrica. The initiative seeks to equip young girls with functional IT skills so they can have a chance at economic independence. These 10 – 17 year-old girls usually come from public schools, orphanages and other places that would seem at first glance to already have a future written out for them – and not particularly a bright one either.
When the shackles of conditioning and lack are removed, however, these girls thrive, grow and show amazing aptitude for the field in which they’ve found themselves.
And academic learning is not all that goes on at Pearls Africa and GirlsCoding. The young ladies are encouraged to build relationships with IT mentors that will guide them aright. This means they gain not just knowledge but also life skills that will set them in good stead for the future.
The girls are loving it! Their families are not left out of the growth and development! The gaps in sexism and income brackets keep getting narrower and children are given a future. Nothing could be sweeter, more heartwarming than this.
A million thanks to Abisoye Ajayi and the rest of the team for this worthy project!