USAID DONATES E102 000 TO ESWATINI CODING SCHOOL

MBABANE – When good Samaritans come on board!

After a selfless act to provide coding classes for tertiary students, the newly-established coding school has been awarded a grant of US$6 000 (E102 000) to run the project. Eswatini Coding School is a technology and media education-focused non-governmental organisation (NGO). Since its establishment last year, the organisation has been assisting children, youth and adults with computer and media literacy. This has been and continues to be achieved through having physical classes, community visits for training and school visits that are run by Celumusa Thusi. The initiative has been running on faith and the resilience of the founder. He said he is grateful to be recognised by the funder. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent federal government agency that receives overall policy guidance from the secretary of State. USAID provides economic, development, and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the US.

Trustworthy

Another sponsor to come on board is Internews; an international media support non-profit organisation. They believe that everyone deserves trustworthy news and information to make informed decisions about their lives. The third sponsor is Advancing Rights in Southern Africa (ARISA); which promotes and protects human rights, especially the rights of the most vulnerable people. ARISA aims to improve recognition, awareness and enforcement of human rights across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
The funds are supposed to help with the framework of the ARISA Youth Media Literacy Programme, aimed at making young people more resilient to disinformation campaigns and political manipulation, by enhancing their media literacy skills and critical thinking. “As a youth-driven organisation, there are so many challenges we faced, while applying and also having an organised, disciplined, creative and innovative team.

Challenges

“We managed to overcome challenges concerning respect and discipline. We have a firm structure of Board members, who assist in managing and keeping the dream alive,” said the founder, Thusi. Thusi is a qualified Computer Scientist and an international award winner in the field of programming. He’s self-motivated and progress driven, he’s a Full Stack Developer with an extensive background in the Information Technology industry.

Innovation

He has a long-standing record of initiative and innovation; he has designed, developed, and executed strategies that ease the workload of companies. He shared that he formed the school because of the rise in technological advancements in our daily lives and working environment, which includes the introduction of automated systems, artificial intelligence, robots and also the rise in unemployment.

Media-related

Worthy of note is the rise in the number of media-related false stories which affect people in all walks of life in different aspects including financial, emotional and physical ways. Some examples include: A false competition trending on social media promising big wins and social media accounts being hacked through false airtime winnings. “The Eswatini Coding School is an array of products that we aim to provide to the youth and children in the Kingdom of Eswatini. These will include, among many other programmes, Coding Clubs, Media Literacy and more,” said Thusi.

He went on to say that the programmes also focus on older persons and persons under specific demographics such as visual disability. The main focus is to provide and be part of a solution to the cries of many in the country and the SADC region. After a study in some developing countries such as India and Kenya, reveals that students start computer classes at an early stage, and most of these students reach an advanced level of computer at primary and high school level where they are able to develop websites, mobile applications and robots and have some opportunities in big tech companies such as Google, an example is a 13-year-old from India employed by Google.  

Knowledge

This is a step in the right direction for the country, as the youth will be introduced to technology knowledge. The programmes are designed to reach the youth in their most comfortable space. The organisation understands that information packages presented to young people have to fit their current economic status. While some young people are within the education system, others are working professionals while the majority of young people are found in communities (either business owners, employed or unemployed). The information shared is designed to be relevant to the circumstances faced by each youth group and adults. These are the programmes that will be offered namely; community outreach programmes, schools programmes and online information hub.

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