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Welcome to CodeBrave’s
2022 Impact Report
CodeBrave teaches marketable tech skills to the most vulnerable children in Lebanon at shelters and disadvantaged schools and links them to opportunities through our strategic partnerships with the Beirut Digital District, McKinsey, and the American University of Beirut. In 2022, we reached 1026 students with CodeBrave’s programme. One of them was Omran. Here is his story.
“I was really proud… I felt like I had created something bigger!”
Omran is a 17-year-old living with his brother in Dar Al Awlad, a shelter for children who don’t have families to live with. His passion has always been video games and since learning that they were built using coding, he became determined to learn to code. He took the first opportunity to sign up for CodeBrave’s classes at the shelter with our teacher Hani. He’s now not just playing video games, but coding them. He has learned how to build websites using HTML, CSS and Javascript. Check out this video of Omran >
Our Impact In 2022
Where we implement our projects:
– Makassed School in Tariq Al Jdideh
– Tahaddi Non-Formal Education Centre in Hay Al Gharbeh
– Dar Al Awlad in Beit Meri
– Makassed School in Al Marj
– Maroun Abboud Public School in Aley
– Maarouf Saad Public School in Saida
“I wish the day was longer”
Elissa, a 14-year-old girl, was one of the girls from the Tahaddi non-formal education centre in Hay al-Gharbeh to use a computer for the first time with CodeBrave. Elissa and 28 other students participated in a workshop where they learned how to code. “I learned a lot of new things! Now I understand what a computer language is”. The girls also received a career guidance session, which allowed them to explore options they did not consider before and get out of their comfort zone. “What we did today is beneficial for our future. I wish the day was longer”. Teaching girls to code in Lebanon is important because digital literacy is essential for children in today’s world as it has now become part of 21st century education.
Featured Student Projects
Typing Guide:
Ali, a Cohort 1 Web Dev Programme Student, who is currently undergoing an internship building a web-based game created this website for his final project based on a passion of his: Typing. The website, which is only operational on Chrome now, allows people to test their typing speed and work on improving it!
AstroZod
Marwa, a Cohort 1 Web Dev Programme Student, designed and built this website after only learning to code for 96 hours! Her website introduces visitors to the world of astrology, zodiac and Chinese Signs, and more.
Tic Tac Toe:
Omran, a Cohort 2 Web Dev Programme Student who is still at the very early stages of the scholarship programme, coded the Tic Tac Toe game using his new Python skills. Two players can play the game on his digital version.
Guide to your country:
Marwa, a Cohort 1 Web Dev Programme Student, designed and built this website, inspired by her favourite country Korea! Her website serves as a country guide. It includes important information, attractions to visit, and foods to try.
Hangman:
Abir, a Scholar from Cohort 2, coded the Hangman game using his new Python skills. Play it to guess between movies, fruits, and countries either in group or individually.
To deliver our projects, we partnered with…
Our projects were funded by…
Thought Leadership & Advocacy
Thought Leadership
“CodeBrave has a big role to play in advocating for tech education in Lebanon. Recently, we’ve helped form a ‘Tech Upskilling Working Group’ for Lebanon, alongside several other organisations in this sector, which aims to map out pathways for youth who want to pursue tech education and link our efforts together. As the leading coding education NGO in Lebanon, CodeBrave has an important role to play in expanding the diversity of applicants to adult bootcamps like SE Factory. Our goal is to create a balanced ecosystem where students can access the various skills training they need to succeed in the future.
It was great to present CodeBrave at multiple events this year to share our insights about pedagogy and tech education. We were hosted by the Asfari Foundation to share our innovative teaching approach and the lessons we’ve learned from years of implementing our curriculum at Lebanese schools. We were also panellists at AUB’s “NGOs as Front-liners Forum” presenting our take on education for transferable skills.”
Eliana Sleiman, Co-Director and Head of Education
Challenges
Challenges
1. Decreasing access to education: The economic situation in Lebanon has continued to worsen in 2022, with poverty levels surpassing 80%. Many families are struggling to make ends meet and are unable to provide their children with the basic necessities, including access to proper education. In our Bekaa project, where fuel prices are prohibitively high for parents, we fund buses to bring children into school.
2. Lack of power & connectivity: The electricity crisis means that in many schools across the country students are learning without light. In most of CodeBrave projects, we have partnered with organisations funding solar panels to schools to avoid this issue. Where necessary, we bring WiFi dongles to centres, which are relatively inexpensive, to ensure proper internet connectivity. The electricity situation was mainly a challenge at our project in the Bekaa, which did not have solar panels and electricity was patchy for several months. Our teachers prepared printed coding exercises during some classes so children could make progress in their learning and then implement their project on the computers when electricity returned. Thankfully, in 2022 a donor funded solar panels for this school, so classes can now go ahead as normal.
3. Lack of digital devices: Families are struggling to meet ends needs which means that having digital devices at home has become a luxury. Online learning is becoming harder to obtain. As our Web Development Programme is remote, CodeBrave distributes donated laptops from our supporters to students across the country, as well as 3G packages, so they can access their classes three times per week.
Tech Education Is More Important Than Ever
Lebanon’s devastating economic collapse and political instability continues unchecked. This had a drastic impact on education and employment opportunities for young people. Youth are increasingly unemployed (over 48% of Lebanon’s youth today), or being forced into exploitative or unsafe work. The multidimensional poverty rate in Lebanon has doubled from 42% in 2019 to 82% in 2021, according to the UN. This means that youth from disadvantaged communities are at even higher risk of becoming unemployed.
Building children’s tech, problem-solving and creative thinking skills from a young age is a uniquely powerful solution for their future. These skills will help young people secure safe, decent and future-proof work, access international remote job opportunities, and give them greater independence from the situation befalling the country.
Financial Sustainability Through CodeBrave Tutors
We launched our social enterprise CodeBrave Tutors, our private coding tutoring service for children worldwide, with a “one-for-one” model – every session purchased funds a session for a child in Lebanon. Last year, CodeBrave Tutors donated 60% more than 2021 to CodeBrave Lebanon. We graduated from 2 acceleration programmes (ChangeLabs and AUB iPark), and won more than £6K in grants. And our curriculum was accredited by STEM.org! Here are our results so far…
- 1,167 classes in Lebanon funded by our clients through our “one-for-one” model
- 22 jobs for Lebanese tutors in Lebanon created (with youth unemployment now over 40% in Lebanon, job creation is also an important social impact)
Looking Ahead
Whilst Lebanon faces many challenges, education cannot wait and must be a national priority to avoid a lost generation. CodeBrave is committed to ensure that education is high-quality and relevant to the 21st century. On top of our ongoing students, we want an additional 1,000 marginalised young people to join our programme this year, with a further 2,000 joining in 2024.
We plan to train another 8 teachers at public schools on our curriculum, who will go on to teach an estimated 480 of their own students.
In 2023 and beyond, we also aim to expand our impact beyond the projects we directly implement through supporting nationwide efforts to modernise the national curriculum.
Our goal is for young people to have the skills and agency to change their futures, and the future of Lebanon.
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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