Serving Girls and Young Women in Newburgh

Submitted by Yulia on Fri, 12/04/2020 - 10:09am

Newburgh Girls Code Club was established through collaboration between OpenHub, Newburgh Free Library, Panja Culture,  and supported with grant from The Rowley Family Foundation Fund for Women and Children since 2019.

Useful links:

Newburgh Girls Code Club initiative 

Newburgh Girls Code Club (NGCC) is addressing the issue of gender and race inequality in the technology field by providing inner city girls and young women, ages 10-18, with the access, education and exposure to STEAM skills in a casual club environment. Hosted by the Newburgh Free Library, the weekly classes that began in the e-learning center on premises, have now transitioned to an online learning model to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, more than ever, it is paramount to combat the isolationism of at-home learning for students. The NGCC online community connection provided continuity of instruction as well as critical social and emotional connections for the girls that they were missing with the disruption of quarantine. NGCC not only provides participants with quality learning tools that challenge them to grow, it also nurtures a sisterhood of supportive peers and role models while teaching Computer Science and digital literacy skills to change the world. Students learn from fun and simple online coding tutorials and learn about inspiring role models--from big names in history, to our very own educators and mentors in the room. Most importantly, NGCC provides them with space to build community with one another, even outside of classroom hours. Together, girls practice different coding skills both as a collective and individually, through modules they’re able to access at home, which also fosters critical parent-child engagement. We pride ourselves on our ability to expand into all aspects of our students’ lives; our commitment to diversity; and collaboration with regional, national, and international technology experts to run workshops, speak on panels, and connect students to industry mentors. The challenges we, as a nation, experienced, extended to our Spring 2020 cohort, but our NGCC leaders moved with speed, grace, and precision to come up with alternative learning models to expeditiously overcome those challenges--just like Coders do. 

Population Served & Their Accomplishments:

​Since NGCC’s inception, we have provided girls and young women from historically underrepresented groups with real world skills to forge a path to economic independence through career enjoyment and success. We have graduated over thirty five youth from three successful cohorts of our core and summer program, and reached over fifty youth through our online streaming broadcast of​ CODE SWITCH: A Panel Elevating the Experiences of BIPOC Women in Tech.​ ​Of our Fall & Spring cohorts, NGCC has served ninety three percent BIPOC (Black/ Indigenous/ People of Color) girls and young women identifying youth in the Newburgh enlarged community. The full breakdown is as follows:  

●    93% BIPOC
●    53% African American/ Black
●    33% Latinx
●    7% Asian/ Pacific Islander
●    7% Caucasian/ White

Totally we served girls and young women in the City of Newburgh between the ages of 10-18 in two cohorts of twenty (20) students each (40 total), and one summer cohort of (15) students 

The City of Newburgh

is a culturally diverse community with an unemployment rate of 6.2%, a median household income of $33,469, and 33% of its population living below the poverty line. Combine these statistics (gathered from US Census Data and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics) with the 70% high school graduation rate, 11% dropout rate, and 83% of K-8 students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, and we have a dire situation in need of hope and opportunity. Through NGCC, we are providing an opportunity for girls and young women to rise above their economic and educational challenges by teaching real world skills that will encourage the pursuit of higher education and can transfer into well paid positions in one of the fastest growing industries in the world. To do that, we are providing participants with learning experiences, and also with inspiration, support, mentorship from successful women leaders, community iconnection, and the power to envision long term improvement in their lives. 

Both the fall and spring cohorts successfully created several websites demonstrating their learned abilities from NGCC programming. One of our students, Jazmine Pyle of the fall 2019 cohort, was part of the victorious team at the 2019 HV Hackathon Fest; another, Arna Patel of the spring 2020 cohort, was this year’s 2020 HV Hackathon First Prize Runner Up. Both Alexandria Crawford and Anneleise  Vargas-Herrera, of the fall 2019 chort, were the student moderators of the ​CODE SWITCH ​ panel, preparing exquisite questions to interview all five invited guests about their experiences. Alexandria Crawford was also invited by the Newburgh Free Library to speak about student leadership and civic activism at the Harriet Tubman Journey to Freedom sculpture project’s inauguration. We have received testimonials from parents across the board describing how their child’s participation in NGCC has made them mose self-aware and boosted their confidence levels exponentially. We are thrilled to offer NGCC students these mentoring, empowerment, and activist experiences that allow them to self-determine and grow into the leaders they are destined to be. 

In our present NGCC online learning model, girls explore design thinking, practice participatory democracy, and ultimately build their “Girls Who Code” project that solves real issues they have identified as important to them in their communities. 

The NGCC is focused on providing an educational opportunity to learn interesting and marketable skills for the digital world. ​Our goal is to help close the gender and race gap in technology, to change the image of what a computer programmer looks like and does, as well as work on creating a pipeline of future female engineers and creative thinkers. NGCC provides tangible, real world skills that will give NGCC youth the cutting edge skills they need to succeed in today’s economy. Their experiences through NGCC foster empowerment through education that will help the girls and young women of Newburgh rise up and thrive toward a brighter, fulfilling future, impacting women and girls for generations of children to come. 

Check these websites built by girls during 2020:

 

We are hiring mentors and teaching assistants for NGCC program in 2021

Please submit your application using this form and indicate your Computer Science  / coding experience. We are aiming two Spring cohorts for 12 weeks  meeting Mondays or Thursdays from 4:00 to 5:30pm starting February 22

 

Students Enrollment

To learn more about this program, we strongly encourage you to attend one of our virtual information sessions via Zoom on:
- Thursday, January 14, from 6 p.m. – 7 p.m., or
- Thursday, January 21, from 6 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Register for an information session at bit.ly/ngccvirtualinfo.

Apply HERE

For additional questions, you can contact the NGCC Managing Consultant, Ms. Anusha Mehar, at nflgirlscodeclub @ gmail.com or (917) 415-0498.

The program brought for you through collaboration between OpenHub, Newburgh Free Library, Panja Culture and Rowley Family Foundation

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