ETC, is a UK registered charity established in 2008. It’s mission is to empower young women in East Africa through education and training. Through its work it has now impacted thousands of girls and young women.
Its latest program, Code Queen, trains unemployed women in coding and helps to get them into STEM careers. So far we’ve had over 300 women join the program, over 75% of them linked to STEM opportunities following graduation and many of them are now earning nearly x10 the national average (which is only $30 per month!).
How did you come up with the idea of ETC?
Early on in my career as a banker, I was invited by Virgin Atlantic to join Sir Richard Branson and his team on a trip to the Masai Mara to celebrate their new route from London to Nairobi. We did some fundraising to help build dormitories at a local primary school.
Whilst out there I was shocked to see that there were hundreds of pupils in a class and only one teacher, which made me wonder “what is the point of giving them all these resources if there are no teachers around to teach them?” This inspired me to set up a scheme whereby UK teachers could volunteer in the local primary schools in the region. This was the start of Educating The Children (ETC).
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How has ETC evolved over the past few years?
Whilst out there, one of our volunteer teachers noticed that once the children finished primary school there’s no secondary school for them to move on to – at the time, the region had 47 primary schools and no secondary schools. Speaking to the community we realised that building a secondary school would help to transform the region. We decided to focus on girls because of the additional barriers that they faced – we saw a huge drop off in enrolment as they transitioned to secondary school because of FGM, pregnancies and child marriages. After many years of hard work which involved fundraising, building and operationalising “Sekenani Girls High School”, we’re proud to have handed it over to the community. It is now run by Narok County Council and currently has over 800 girls attending.
Our focus now has turned to technology and the future of work. Globally only 3% of ICT graduates are women, and the disparities in the developing world are even bigger (UNESCO). Just before COVID, we started working on a pilot where we put young unemployed women in Uganda through a coding bootcamp, and then linked them up with jobs, internships and other opportunities following graduation. The program was successful and this was the beginning of “Code Queen”. So far we’ve had over 300 women join the program, over 75% of them linked to STEM opportunities following graduation and many of them are now earning nearly x10 the national average (which is only $30 per month!).
What can we hope to see from you/ETC in the future?
We’re looking to expand the program to other parts of the country such as Gulu and the refugee camp in Umbe as well as other countries such as Kenya and Zambia. Our girls secondary school in the Masai Mara could benefit from Code Queen as well. One of our biggest hurdles is fundraising – there’s so much we could do if we had the money. We’re being innovative and resourceful for example we’re working on the development of a Learning Management System which will help scaling. However, due to infrastructure issues, there’s still quite a bit of monetary investment that’s required for some of the more remote regions.
Through my own journey and retraining as a therapist, I’ve systemically noticed that women suffer greatly from imposter syndrome, not feeling good enough and a strong inner critic, much more so than men. Building and running “women-only” programs helps build confidence but we can do more. I’m also looking to enrich the programs so that they focus on self-development as well as technical skills – so that the transformation is on the inside as well as the outside!
The post Meet Sonal Kadchha, Founder at Educating The Children (ETC): A Charity Empowering Young Women in East Africa Through Education and Training appeared first on TechRound.