Refugees On Rails: Inspiring new arrivals with code
For three days a week an empty table sits vacant on Wooga’s fourth floor, a few feet away from co-founders Jens and Philipp. Empty space is a rarity in the company, with whiteboards, board games and dogs usually occupying every available nook and cranny. But the table is being put to good use. In April earlier this year, Wooga welcomed students from the Refugees On Rails organisation into the office to get started on the first class of a 12-week learning program that aims to empower new arrivals to Germany.
Refugees On Rails is a non-profit organisation founded here in Berlin by Weston Hankins and a group of friends in 2013. Its aim is to teach digital literacy through learning how to code. Since its formation, the organisation has expanded and established further chapters (networks of volunteers who help coordinate the program) in Cologne, Munich, Leipzig, Aschaffenburg, Toronto, Minneapolis and Amsterdam. Hamburg is soon to be added to that list.
One of the organization's first volunteers, Nakeema Stefflbauer, is Program Director of the Berlin chapter. After stints in Boston and Toronto, Nakeema relocated to Berlin, having fallen in love with the city after her first visit in the late 90s: “Unfortunately, it took two tech booms and two tech busts before I was in a position to work in my industry and have some job security here”. She attended the first information session with Refugees On Rails and was “hooked”.
“I never thought I’d be doing this, but it’s a perfect match for everything I’ve done until now. And the funny thing is, students also say that they didn’t imagine themselves doing this. But you know, in extraordinary circumstances -- people adapt.”
Each Refugees on Rails chapter is run differently, meaning there might be weekend seminars in one location, monthly workshops in another or, as is the case in Berlin, classes twice weekly. Within the Berlin chapter at least, Nakeema aims to know each student personally in order to find out where they come from and what their circumstances might be.
“Experience has taught me that it’s good to know if someone is in an apartment and has wifi at home, versus someone is in a Sporthalle that doesn’t have access to electricity plugs”.
Typically six students take part in each round of classes, meeting every Tuesday and Thursday evening. The curriculum in Berlin is designed to give students an idea of what might be possible after developing a strong skillset in coding. Using the Firehose and FreeCodeCamp.com curriculums students are taught HTML, CSS, Javascript and Ruby on Rails.
“The main purpose is to empower students who are coming from, in many cases, interrupted college level educations,” Nakeema explains. “Many come from actual careers and work experience. In some cases, they have aspirations of university but had with no chance to actually attend. In all cases, there is the need to reinvent themselves in a new country, a new culture and in a job market that they don’t know”.
Although the curriculum is an integral part of the program, the 12 week program is not an all-in-one solution to create fully fledged engineers.
“We’re not not trying to put them through bootcamp and have them come out as fully trained engineers. We want them to be interested and aware of the resources available to them, give them support from with the help of our mentors, and if interested, they can go further on their own. What’s important to understand is that creating content for the web is empowering and is something that every business needs to do, regardless of the product or service that they are offering”.
Of course, given the tumultuous nature of students’ arrival in Berlin there can be complications. Only half of the students from the first round were able to complete the course. While all but one of the students had completed college level education and were perfectly suited to the demands of the program, social situations meant that some had to drop out. One in particular found a job as a remote support technician in Berlin, enabling him to send money to his family back in Syria. But together with German classes, this left little time to learn code.
For those that complete the program, there are real opportunities to continue to develop skills and gain a solid foothold in the job market. Some are paired up with senior developers in paid freelance projects, others into companies based within accelerator programs.
“It's important to not lose sight of the fact that these are professionals and pre- professionals who have been forced to relocate,” says Nakeema. “A lot of what is necessary, like learning the language and the bureaucracy is time taken away from, you know, ‘what can I be learning? What can I be doing?’. Most are just eager to get back to some sort of structure”.
Nakeema works with developers who volunteer part-time to mentor students. She is currently seeking Rails and JavaScript developers - and is always open to more help.
Find out more at: http://refugeesonrails.org/en/