Social Volunteering with CoderDojo

Passion beyond work: Join Francisco on a journey of social volunteering with CoderDojo

Discover the inspiring story of Francisco, an isolutions employee who brings his passion not only to work, but also to his community. Two Saturdays a month, he dedicates his time to CoderDojo, a local coding club for kids and teens.

In October 2022 I have been contacted by the teacher of an English academy in La Coruña with a very interesting project and a proposal for me. He wanted to establish a CoderDojo club in the city, and he asked me if I would be willing to work with him as a volunteer to teach programming to children and teens for free.

My first question was: "And what is CoderDojo"?

Well... In over 100 countries, CoderDojo is the free, fun way to learn coding for kids and teens. A Dojo is a free, volunteer-led, community-based computer club for young people. Anyone aged 7 to 17 can visit a Dojo and learn to code, build a website, or create an app or game. Dojos are a space for kids and teens to explore technology in an informal, creative, safe, and social environment.

Once I understood the project, my answer was clearly affirmative. Since then, I'm teaching programming to children and teens in the city of La Coruña two Saturdays a month.

At first few children came, but step by step more people got to know us, the press interviewed us, we attended technology fairs... And today we have full classes and we are looking for more places to expand. We have also added more activities such as Raspberry projects and computer security talks for children and parents.

Various companies and organizations have also taken an interest in our work and have contributed to this social activity, like the Galician Supercomputing Center and, of course, isolutions, who have wanted to donate many laptops for children who do not have such resources.

In summer we temporarily stop our activity to give the children a break on their vacations, (and give us another too), but not before presenting the website dedicated to CoderDojo Coruña: Website CoderDojo

Remember that there are CoderDojo clubs in many cities and countries, so if you are interested in collaborating as a volunteer or, why not, take your children, check the global website for more information.

In addition to such contributions, isolutions has also provided resources, such as laptop donations, to strengthen organisations like CoderDojo. One of the ways isolutions encourages social responsibility is by giving employees an extra week's holiday to work on their own social responsibility projects. These can include community work, the environment or even overseas social responsibility projects.

You want to learn more? Get in touch with me.

Francisco Manigrasso

System Architect specialized in Exchange
Microsoft Certified Professional

francisco.manigrasso@isolutions.ch

Volunteering at CoderDojo

My first question was: "And what is CoderDojo"?

You want to learn more? Get in touch with me.

Francisco Manigrasso

we shape the future