My Experience Coaching in Django Girls Lagos #3 (for IDPs)

So, on the 27th and the 28th of March 2017, I coached for the second time in a Django Girls workshop - the first was Django Girls Abuja. I equally helped organize both. Django Girls is a not-for-profit movement that trains females on how to build websites using Python and the Django framework; this was the third event of its kind organized in Lagos.

For me, this program held so much value because it was specially organized for the female IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) in Lagos State. At this point, I would love to give a shout out to the lead of the organisers of the event, Simi Olusola, CEO Aspilos Foundation and Initiator of AboCoders, for pulling together this group of people that are often overlooked in the society to partake in a tech event of this manner.

Without further ado, I would dive into my pleasant and gratifying experience at the event. We had a pre-workshop coaches’meetup at the fantastic hotels.ng office in Yaba. The workshop officially kicked off on the 27th with the pre-installation party at the Co-Creation Hub, Yaba with 38 participants (25 of which were IDPs) and 13 coaches that aided the participants in the workshop (shout out to all the brilliant and amazing coaches).

I was assigned two young IDPs aged 12 and 14 and we had the best time learning basic programming concepts and how to install Python, Django, Sublime Text and Git. And the amazing thing is, they were eager to learn and able to recall all they had been taught. Talk about programmers in the making!!! At the end of the day, they were looking forward to building their own Django-based websites the next day.

After a luscious breakfast the following day, the second leg of the event kicked off in earnest. This time I had three incredible ladies to coach. We progressed through the tutorial, topic by topic, from the concept of the internet, to the command prompt, to introduction to Python and then building a Django-powered blog. My students made coaching seem worthwhile; they asked intelligent questions, ran codes independently for the most part and when they encountered bugs, tried to fix them before asking for help. Though they were not able to finish the tutorial due to the time constraint (so sad), they did an awfully good job coding from morning to evening with just a short lunch break in between. At the end of the day, I encouraged them to continue with the tutorial in their spare time and reach out if they encountered any issues.

In addition to exposing the IDPs to programming and technology in general, I applaud the Django Girls Lagos #3 team which I am a part of and the sponsors for enriching the lives of the participants materially. All IDPs were given items such as laptops, flash drives, t-shirts, umbrellas and other little items at the end of the event. Other participants also received all these except the laptops. It was heartwarming to see the event turn out so successfully. Of course, there was the classic photo shoot at the end to cap the workshop and we made funny faces and poses for the camera.

On a final note, long live Django Girls!!! Django Girls rocks!!!

Django Girls Lagos Organisers’ Note:

We could not have had a successful and impactful workshop without the support of the following: AboCoders, Andela, CCHub Nigeria, GitHub, Google Nigeria, MTN Nigeria and Python Software Foundation and other individuals. Thanks to their support, we were able to give every IDP and student from Bridge Academy a laptop and get everything we needed for the workshop.

To our coaches, we would like to say a big thank you. Even if we had all the money but had no coaches, we would have made no impact. Thank you for the time you spent sharing knowledge with the participants! You made it happen!

Django Girls is a non-profit that teach programming to women all around the world. Want to help us? Support us!