A glimpse into our weekly web conference calls with the mentors and students

BBC Persian footage and interviews from their visit to our school in Herat, Afghanistan #AfghanCodeSchool #AfghanGirlsWhoCode #DigitalLiteracy #Eduation

http://www.bbc.com/persian/afghanistan/2015/12/151224_l93_afghan_coding

Now that construction of the school is completed and the hard ware equipment is all set up, we’re happy to report that classes have begun and the girls have started learning HTML and CSS. Please consider making a donation to help keep this effort going codetoinspire.org/donate ‪#‎AfghanCodeSchool‬‪#‎CodeToInspire‬

Education, is the most constructive and strongest force on earth for making positive change. Imagine a country where as a result of  lack of infrastructure, shortage of teachers, social and cultural barriers, extremist and conservative locals women had a very difficult and challenging time accessing very basic human rights

It was November 2014 that I started to think how to tackle social, cultural, safety and security issues for women using education and technology. On January 2015 I founded Code to Inspire as the first coding school for girls in Afghanistan. Why a coding school and technology? Living in today’s world the only thing you need to get in touch with thousands of people without considering any geographical barrier is being online and accessing the Internet.

Code to Inspire provides a safe educational and working space for girls who have been pushed back due to financial, cultural and security reason.

During our first year we have achieved great results. We did a successful online crowdfunding where all the funds went directly towards the establishment of our coding school in Herat, Afghanistan. We received in-kind donation of 20 laptops from Overstock who are one of the true believers of our mission in Afghanistan.

  “At Overstock.com, there’s a lot we do simply because it’s the right thing. One of these is providing employment for women in Afghanistan. Indeed, there was a time when Worldstock, our fair trade division, was the single largest employer of women in that country. Another thing we do out of principle is support the global bitcoin ecosystem. So you can imagine that when we learned about Code to Inspire, which uses bitcoin to give women in Afghanistan meaningful and sustainable employment, were eager to find a way to help out.”

                                                    Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne

We are very grateful to our supporters and those who believed in us and our mission to empower girls in Afghanistan and change their future and the future of their country. To continue our mission and keep our coding school running we are still in need of your help and support. Be our ambassador and storyteller, Share our story with your network to give a positive story about Afghanistan.  

More educated women make the next generation more willing to make peace and not war.

Fereshteh Forough, Founder and CEO

With your continued support the school will stay open http://codetoinspire.org/donate/