This summer we launched a coding scholarship fund with our friends over at 23 Code Street. The scholarship allowed two Muslim women, Iqra and Halimatou to join the 12-week web development course at 23 Code Street. We were hugely oversubscribed so we’re back with a weekend course!

Come and learn the foundations of web development over a weekend in the iconic Tea Building, Shoreditch. We will start right at the beginning, no previous experience or knowledge is required- only a laptop!

For more information and tickets

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Meet our current scholarship students! 

Halimatou, Mother of 3

“I’m doing this for me but also for my daughters. I told them I was going to return to school and they were very excited, wanting to know every details. It is important for me to show them that as a black Muslim girl, they can dream and achieve everything they want.

I’m aware that there is still not enough people from BAME backgrounds in the tech industry but I do believe we have to keep pushing to change that. The fact that two Muslim women, Nafisa and Anisah decided to create this scholarship to open doors to other Muslim women is the true definition of sisterhood and can only inspire me to do more and excel. I hope that one day I will be able to give back to the community in the same way.”

Iqra, Graduate and Social Activist

“After a few weeks, I hit a roadblock. I felt overwhelmed and confused by the amount of information and advice I’d get on learning to code. Being the only Black or Muslim person at most tech meet-ups and learning that women account for less than 5% of software engineers in the U.K didn’t help very much either (couldn’t find statistics on BAME women and that said a lot). Self-doubt started to kick in. Questions started to keep me up at night again.

Thankfully, I came across and applied to the Amaliah × 23 Code Street: Learn to Code Scholarship for Muslim Women and got in! It’s a 12-week web development course. We are currently half way through and I couldn’t be any happier.

Not only am I learning the technical skills needed to become a software engineer, but also, important skills such as teamwork/collaboration. After all, no great code was written by just one person. I’m no longer confused or overwhelmed by the amount of information on the Internet and things are starting to click. I now know where I want to be within the next year.

Knowing that I’d be in a field where I might be the ‘only black or Muslim girl in a room’ especially in a society that sometimes devalues you on the basis of your race, ethnicity, or religion is frightening, but there is something about having a great support network in a positive and uplifting environment like 23 Code Street that makes it less frightening.”

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Who will be teaching you?

Our teachers are women, those who identify as, and non-binary people. They are industry professionals with a range of knowledge and experiences from developing award-winning apps, to working with some of the biggest brands in the world, to teaching our courses.

We will have a range of speakers, both those who identify as men and women.

Agenda

– Friday, November 3 at 6:30 pm – 9 pm:

We will meet over dinner. You will have the chance to meet and hear from people in the industry, meet your peers and teachers, and begin your immersion into the weekend.

– Saturday, November 4 at 9.00 – 6.30 pm:

We will have yoga at 9.00 until 9.45. We will then have breakfast and get straight into it at 10 am. We will be covering HTML and CSS, talking best practices and accessibility. You will also get to hear from industry experts during the break!

– Sunday, November 5 at 10 – 5 pm:

We will have yoga at 9.30 until 10.15. We will have more coding from 10.30! We will be getting our teeth into some Javascript and talking more about accessibility and where to go from here.

At the end of the day, we will have presentations of some of the projects you have built, a certificate ceremony and closing words from the 23 Code Street and Amaliah teams.

Places are limited, book here!