Django Girls Lagos Workshop #2
This blog post was written by Kosy Anyawu. Thank you <3
My experience with Django Girls: Building a community of women coders
When I started learning Django, a trainer gave me a Django Girls tutorial. I looked through the site and saw that there were Django Girls events in cities. A part of me wished it would happen In Lagos. A few months after, Aisha Bello - the organiser of the fist Django Girls in Lagos sometime in February 2016 - reached out to an Andela fellow, who in turn reached out to me because I was the only girl doing the Python/Django stack in Andela at the time.
I assisted in soliciting for coaches for the event. It meant that I had to go and bug some of my Python developer colleagues in Andela to register as coaches. I also volunteered to coach at the event, guiding a group of 4 women through this beautiful journey of creating things. Now that I think about it, it was more like explaining and guiding, because they had little or no programming experience. With the tutorial as a guide and me explaining some hard to understand concepts, the light and excitement shone in their eyes when they finally got their first Django-powered page. It reminded me of myself and when I had first started to learn Django on my own using the Django girls tutorial.
In April 2016, Aisha reached out to me to help co-organise the 2nd Django Girls Lagos workshop. We decided to increase the number of attendees than before because we wanted to reach more women. We did more publicity, advertisements on female-inclined blogs, spoke to more people, posted on Facebook, advertised heavily and tried to get the word out in as many different ways as possible.
On the day of the workshop, it rained heavily but despite the odds, about 40 women were in attendance even though we had planned for 60 - 70 girls. We had about 20 coaches (including men) for both days of the workshop. The first day was an install party where they set up their computers and installed the tools they would need on the 2nd day. After installation, we suggested they begin the first part of the tutorial so they can do more before the end of the workshop the next day. This is because we realised from previous workshops that 8-9 hours in one day wasn’t enough time for many of the girls to get at least halfway through the tutorial.
This time there were more coaches to a fewer number of people so it was easier for the ladies to get help. At the end of the workshop, we talked to them about Andela and the Python Nigeria community. Those interested in joining Andela gave their email addresses so we could reach out to them, as well as those who are interested in being a part of the Python Nigeria community. Adding them to Python Nigeria slack group was to make them feel as part of the developer community.
I think being a programmer in isolation is not fun. It is easy to get help when you have a community of developers around you. You can get mentors and find someone to pair program with easily. When you are in a place where there are people doing the same thing you are interested in, you see what they’re doing and it motivates you to do more. When you’re just alone, you feel comfortable at your own level without having the urge to learn more and grow. Being in a community teaches you that you still have a lot to learn.
After Aisha organised the first Django Girls in Lagos, other volunteers from around the country started organising Django Girls workshop in other cities. It is great that people are bringing Django girls to various cities in Nigeria because they have seen its benefit. It shouldn’t be only Lagos that people should get opportunities for things like this, other cities in Nigeria should also benefit and have developer communities around them. I’m glad Django Girls exists as an avenue to get more women into programming and I don’t want the men to feel bad that there isn’t a similar workshop for them, but the fact still remains that there aren’t enough women in tech and we need to do all we can to encourage them to step in.
Anyone can bring Django Girls to his or her city. So far it has been a delight to watch Django Girls upcoming workshops spring up in other cities including Yenagoa, Enugu, Kaduna, Awka, Abuja, Owerri, Benin City, Markudi; this is excluding previous workshops that have happened in other cities including Ota, Ogbomoso, Akure, Port-Harcourt, Minna to mention a few. If you are a lady curious and interested in technology and you are close to any of those cities do apply because applications are still open. To the men please do the world a favour by encouraging the women around you including your wives, girlfriends, sisters, friends.e.t.c.
Special thanks to my co-organisers Tomiwa Orolu, Obiamaka Agbaneje and Aisha Bello for sacrificing time and energy in making the workshop a reality, my colleagues and Andela for supporting us both financially and giving us the amazing Amity rooftop to hold our workshop, The Python Software Foundation for always having our back and being there for us since time immemorial :), Edward Popoola for single-handedly lending his support for both Lagos workshops and Bella Naija for being our media sponsor and using their platform to reach out to more women.This appreciation won’t be complete without recognising the role of the Python Nigeria Users Group, well-wishers, and supporters who helped get the word out and to bloggers that helped to spread the word by blogging. Without any of these people and organisations needless to say the workshop wouldn’t have been a reality and we can’t say thank you enough.
Thanks to Mohini Ufeli and my co-organisers for their help with this article.
More pictures of the workshop can be found here.