RHS student sparks coding interest in teen girls from India slums

Learn more about Project Kaushal and how to get involved here: https://www.kriti.org.in/project_kaushal.html

Twenty-three percent. That’s the percentage of people in the city of Hyderabad who are impoverished. This figure is the second highest in India, beaten only by the city of Mumbai (twenty-seven percent). Compare that to Seattle, where ten percent of residents live below the poverty line, or Redmond, where that figure is just five percent.

In one of the slums of Hyderabad is a school. In this school is a computer lab, and in this computer lab are twelve students, most of whom are girls. Each student is armed with a thirst for knowledge, a desire to learn as much as they can. This school aims to provide that, despite all roadblocks.

Kriti Social Initiatives is a nonprofit organization established in 2009 with the goal of bettering the lives of Hyderabad’s urban poor. Its main focuses are on helping vulnerable women become self-reliant and earn their own income, and on helping ensure that children get a basic education. In the academic year 2020-2021, Kriti fully supported the education of 391 students and provided school supplies to over six thousand students.

One of Kriti’s educational programs is called Project Kaushal. Project Kaushal provides coding classes to some of its older students living in the Shaikpet area of Hyderabad. These classes give students the basic technical skills they need to succeed in the workplace. That’s where high school junior Diya Yaga comes in. Diya developed a curriculum for a basic web development class and, over a period of eight weeks, taught the curriculum to students at the Kriti’s computer center, called the Kaushal Center.

The goal of this course was to show students the possibilities of computer science and web development. Many students living in these areas, especially girls, don’t usually have the opportunity to pursue these subjects. This course was meant to introduce them to how websites are designed and created, and what programmers and web developers can do with these skills, with the hopes of encouraging these students to consider exploring careers in technology.

The course covered everything from basic HTML and CSS to domain names to website builders such as Wix and Squarespace. By the end of eight weeks, each student had created a website about themselves and their life, which they presented to the class. Seeing their enthusiasm Diya Yaga was able to show how to implement more advanced features into their sites, like interactive maps and photo galleries to allow the students to explore their creative potential.

The course taught the students so much more than the basics of web development and web design. By giving students a baseline understanding of coding, it helps them develop the skills to consider high-level careers in technology. Some students want to be engineers, others photographers, still few are exploring career options bound by constraints of life. But with basic coding knowledge, unseen doors of opportunity suddenly begin to open. Diya Yaga felt rewarded with this experience and wants to continue to teach the students at the Kaushal Center.