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Welcome to CodeBrave’s
2021 Impact Report
CodeBrave teaches marketable tech skills to the most vulnerable children in Lebanon at shelters and disadvantaged schools. In 2021, we grew from 40 students in our programme to 510. One of them was Amal. Here is her story.
“I have multiple goals in life. All my goals are based on two purposes: the first one is to be a happy and successful person, and the second is to help as many people as I can globally.”
Amal is a hardworking and ambitious 17-year-old girl from Chouf. She found out about CodeBrave’s Web Dev Programme and she applied with zero prior coding experience. Amal excelled in her coding studies, going beyond her class work developing projects in her free time like a “card-guessing” game and a “fortune-teller” game. She has now launched an online business with her cousins to sell handmade bracelets online. They started with an Instagram page and are in the process of building a website.
“[The CodeBrave Web Dev Programme] was great and amazing, and so interesting, and really one of the most amazing opportunities I had in my life.”
Our Impact in 2021
“The Web Dev Programme taught me new skills, not just Python, but also important problem-solving skills. I think it will be helpful for my future.”
Ahmad is a 17-year-old from a remote area in the south of Lebanon. It’s an area with few job opportunities that has been hit hard by the economic crisis. He works in a nut shop after school. Three times a week, Ahmad has online coding classes with his teacher Jawad, which he joins using a laptop donated by CodeBrave. He studies hard in his spare time too – at CodeBrave, we know self-led learning is one of the most important life skills. This autumn, CodeBrave arranged a paid apprenticeship for him and another advanced student with a company in the US, building their new website under the supervision of his teacher. So far, Ahmad has done a great job responding to his client’s needs and seeing the potential of remote digital work while building his portfolio.
To deliver our projects, we partnered with…
Our projects were funded by…
Thought Leadership
Thought Leadership
“At CodeBrave, we use educational psychology-based teaching techniques to allow every child to reach their potential. Training our teachers to be a stable presence and create a safe classroom environment maximises the impact of our classes, especially in a context where poverty and national trauma are impacting children’s brains and ability to learn. We are also offering these educational psychology trainings to other teachers in Lebanon as part of our mission to support Lebanon’s youth”
STEM Education Lead Eliana
- 9 In 2021, we trained 9 teachers in our educational-psychology informed teaching approach.
- 70 We trained 70 consultants from McKinsey in how to mentor children on life skills.
Challenges
Challenges
Globally, 2021 was another challenging year, but in Lebanon it has been particularly difficult. On top of the covid 19 pandemic, a massive economic recession has led to a huge unemployment crisis (estimated 40% youth unemployment) and an estimated 75% of the population is now living in poverty. As a result, many people, if they have means, are leaving the country in search of better opportunities. With fuel prices rising, parents are also struggling to get their children to school. Many families have only a few hours of power per day, so remote learning is difficult.
To address these challenges in 2021, CodeBrave sourced over 120 donated laptops, tablets and smartphones from companies and friends for our students to use. We distributed 3G mobile internet packages too so students can join classes remotely, and we funded buses to bring children into schools.
Tech Education is More Important Than Ever
The pandemic has highlighted the life-changing impact of having digital skills and being able to access education and work online. How can Lebanon’s next generation build its future? How will young people secure jobs? What skills are needed to rebuild the country?
It is clear that we need new solutions going forward to address the needs, and young people can use technology to pave the way forward. Tech offers young people the opportunity to work remotely and participate in the global economy from Lebanon. Understanding how to utilise the most widely used software platforms and use technology to solve problems will help younger people in Lebanon to take control of their situations.
Financial Sustainability Through CodeBrave Tutors
By 2020, we were looking for ways to make CodeBrave’s work in Lebanon more sustainable. A Lebanese man living in Dubai, Hani, contacted us out of the blue to ask if we could tutor his son in coding. He wanted to find a tutor in Lebanon (rather than Dubai) because Lebanon was in the middle of an unemployment crisis. So we decided to set up CodeBrave Tutors as a private coding tutoring service to teach children worldwide! CodeBrave Tutors donates all funding to CodeBrave Lebanon. Here are our results so far…
- 4000 hours of tech education funded (that’s around 45 children receiving 2-3 hours of coding classes per week for a whole school year)
- 12 jobs for Lebanese tutors in Lebanon created (in a country where youth unemployment is now over 40% and the local currency has lost 90% of its value, jobs with CodeBrave Tutors, paid in a foreign currency (dollars) are having an important social impact.
Looking Ahead
Over the coming three years (2022-24), we aim for an additional 1,600 marginalized young people, on top of our 400 ongoing students, to join our programme at shelters and disadvantaged schools using our pedagogical approach adjusted for children from traumatic backgrounds.
In 2022 and beyond, we also aim to expand our impact beyond the projects we directly implement through (1) supporting nationwide efforts to modernize the national curriculum, (2) running awareness-raising STEM events, and (3) offering more free training and coaching for teachers at other centres on our tech curriculum and teaching methodology through a CodeBrave Teaching Fellowship.
Donate
You can contribute to CodeBrave’s work by donating to CodeBrave Foundation, a registered charity in England and Wales, no. 1188692.
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