why you should coach at django girls

February 22nd, 2016

Given on Dec 10, 2015 at PyLadies Amsterdam.

Dear PyLadies,

My name is Martin and I'm one of the organizers of Django Girls The Hague. Which will take place next year in the beginning of March.

Django Girls is a non-profit organization that aims to give women a really positive first experience with programming. I'm not going to explain why we think this is important, because I think if you're a member of PyLadies you already know that.

I will explain how we do it. We invite a room full of women to participate. We seat a group of 3 women around a table. And we give them a programming coach. What they will be doing is building a web application from scratch. Using a tutorial special made for Django Girls. Now, the programming coach is there to help them, to explain things, and to give moral support.

Now, the coaches are integral to the event. We as organizers can provide a nice room in a nice location, a good tutorial, and food etc, but the coach is the human factor.

We are currently trying to find these coaches. That's why I'm here today. I would really like to encourage you to sign up to be a coach.

I've been a coach at two Django Girls events in the past. And in fact tomorrow morning I'm flying to Italy to be a coach at Django Girls in Rome on Saturday. It's a really fun thing to do.

The people who come to Django Girls aren't the kind of people who say alright, so what is this programming thing all about? If it doesn't take more than 5 minutes I'm willing to give it a try and then I'll be on my way. These are people who decide to spend 8-9 hours learning something new, that they've never done before. I mean can you imagine? It takes little courage to do that. So they're really interested and motivated to learn programming. And as a coach you see programming happen for the first time, through their eyes. It's really exciting. It's a really fun way to spend a day.

In terms of what it takes to be a coach. I want to make this very clear: You don't have to an expert on Python or Django. I would recommend that you work through the tutorial that we use yourself. Ask yourself if you understand everything. Ask yourself if you think you can help someone complete it. If so then you can be a coach. Ultimately if you encounter a problem at the workshop we will have some more experienced coaches to help you.

So if you think this sounds awesome and you want to help us make this possible then sign up to be a coach. You can sign up on our website, just google for Django Girls and find our chapter for The Hague, Den Haag. We also have a twitter feed where you can follow our updates.

We would love to have you there! Thank you very much!!

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