Girls Who Code encourages girls to get involved in coding early
CEO and Founder, Reshma Saujani reflects the importance of bravery and empowerment our girls at a young age
By: Reshma Saujani, Girls Who Code Founder and CEO
According to research done in partnership with Accenture, we know that girls are most likely to pursue computer science when they are exposed to it early on in their lives. That’s why, starting this school year, we’re introducing a new Club program for 3rd-5th grade girls.
In these Clubs, girls will have the chance to explore computer science with other girls — using material that’s tailored to them. The new Clubs program will incorporate activities, characters, and vocabulary from our bestselling nonfiction book Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World.
By encouraging girls to code, we’re also teaching them to — as I always say! — flex their bravery muscles. Growing up, our girls learn to be perfect and avoid failure and so when they’re given the opportunity to write code, and then fail (it’s inevitable with coding!) they give up. Meanwhile, the boys in the classroom will write failed code a million times over without getting discouraged.
Our books, our programs, our curricula are first and foremost about closing the gender gap… but they’re also a part of the bravery revolution. We’re here to teach girls that they can be anything they want to be, do anything they want to do.
You don’t have to be a coder to support this revolution. One of the ways you can get involved is by starting a Club in your community, no matter what your coding or teaching background is. A lot of our facilitators have no technical experience and learn coding alongside our girls. You can learn more about our Clubs and apply to start one on our website (or you can just click here!).
A special thank you to General Motors and the JCDRP Family Foundation for their support of our 3rd-5th Grade Clubs.
Join the movement: start a Girls Who Code Club to your community!
